polymer

Microgel polymer beads may provide general vehicle for vaccines, gene therapy

A simple method of shuttling proteins into cells via microscopic polymer beads shows promise as a general way of carrying vaccines or bits of DNA for gene therapy, according to chemists at the University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The polymer beads are imbedded with a protein – a vaccine antigen, for example – and made large enough to attract the attention of the immune system’s scavenger cells, which engulf them and try to digest them with acid.

Super-soft nanobrushes could pave way for medical breakthroughs

Scientists are creating molecularly engineered polymer brushes using a revolutionary catalytic polymerization procedure developed in their laboratory. These nanoscale brushes — whose bristles are softer than anything except hydrogel — have numerous potential applications in fields including medicine, computers and environmental engineering.

Biodegradable plastic imitates bacteria

Finding an economical way to make a polyester commonly found in many types of bacteria into a plastic with uses ranging from packaging to biomedical devices is a long-held scientific goal. Such a polymer would be a “green” plastic, in that it would be biodegradable. Geoffrey Coates, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., has partially achieved this goal by discovering a highly efficient chemical route for the synthesis of the polymer, known as poly(beta-hydroxybutyrate) or PHB. The thermoplastic polyester is widely found in nature, particularly in some bacteria, where it is formed as intracellular deposits and used as a storage form of carbon and energy. And yet it shares many of the physical and mechanical properties of petroleum-based polypropylene, with the added benefit of being biodegradable.