Robust and smart hydrogels based on natural polymers

Smart Carriers and Nanohealers: A Nanomedical Insight on Natural Polymers

Biodegradable polymers are popularly being used in an increasing number of fields in the past few decades. The popularity and favorability of these materials are due to their remarkable properties, enabling a wide range of applications and market requirements to be met. Polymer biodegradable systems are a promising arena of research for targeted and site-specific controlled drug delivery, for d...

Robust antimicrobial compounds and polymers derived from natural resin acids.

We report novel robust resin acid-derived antimicrobial agents that exhibit excellent antimicrobial activities against a broad spectrum of bacteria (6 Gram-positive and 7 Gram-negative) with selective lysis of microbial membranes over mammalian membranes. Our results indicate that hydrophobicity and unique structures of resin acids can be determining factors in dictating the antimicrobial activ...

Kinetics of Smart Hydrogels

Responsive and recognitive hydrogels using star polymers.

Polymeric networks that have inherent capabilities to recognize different molecules and chemical changes in their environment are the next generation of materials that will aid in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. We have prepared new networks based on star polymers that were designed to be responsive and recognitive. Using molecular imprinting with D-glucose and crosslinking with poly(e...

Phase Transitions in Polyampholytic Polymers and Hydrogels

Polyampholytes represent a class of ionic copolymer containing positive, negative and even neutral monomers. The unique physical properties of polyampholytes that arise from Coulombic interactions between polymeric and solvent ions make them of interest to both the scientific and engineering community. This study presents an experimental and analytical investigation of the phase behavior of pol...