We present a soft bio-machine constructed from biological motors (actin/myosin). We have found that chemically cross-linked polymer-actin complex gel filaments can move on myosin coated surfaces with a velocity as high as that of native F-actin, by coupling to ATP hydrolysis. Additionally, it is shown that the velocity of polymer-actin complex gel depends on the species of polycations binding t...

Synthetic polymers have transformed society in many areas of science and technology, including recent breakthroughs in medicine. Synthetic polymers now offer unique and versatile platforms for drug delivery, as they can be "bio-tailored" for applications as implants, medical devices, and injectable polymer-drug conjugates. However, while several currently used therapeutic proteins and small mol...

Recent progress in the design of new polymer membrane-based potentiometric ion-, gas- and bio-selective electrodes in chemistry laboratories at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) is reviewed. Emphasis is placed on describing the performance of devices for measuring anions (e.g., salicylate, thiocyanate, chloride and heparin) and gases (e.g., ammonia, carbon dioxide and oxygen) in biological...

In contrast to the usual inclusion of disulfide bonds within a polymer structure to facilitate bio-degradation, we have designed a self-curing "one pot" hyperbranched polymer capable of forming crosslinked gels under reducing conditions abundant in tumoural tissue.

The bio-based industrial sector has been recognized by the European Union as a priority area toward sustainability, however, the environmental profile of bio-based products needs to be further addressed. This study investigated, through the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach, the environmental performance of bio-based 1,4-butanediol (BDO) produced via direct fermentation of sugars from wheat ...

The current aim of our research work is to isolate bio-polymer from fresh rhizomes of Zingiber officinale & to evaluate its retardibility by formulating microdwarfs containing nimesulide as a model drug. The bio-material was isolated by a simplified method. Six different bio-micro dwarf formulations were prepared using isolated bio-material as a retardant. The formulated microcapsules were eval...

Utilisation of bio-derived platform molecules in polymer synthesis has advantages which are, broadly, twofold; to digress from crude oil dependence of the polymer industry and secondly to reduce the environmental impact of the polymer synthesis through the inherent functionality of the bio-derived platform molecules. Bulk polymerisation of bio-derived unsaturated di-acids has been employed to p...

SUMMARY Ionic polymer metal composites (IPMC) have been widely investigated as newly-emerging materials for transducer applications due to their good performance, such as low weight, good flexibility and large strain. A bio-inspired design was described and applied to build 3-D papillae dome structure for vectorial tactile sensors. INTRODUCTION The electrical-chemical-mechanical effect in ionic...

A variety of renewable starting materials, such as sugars and polysaccharides, vegetable oils, lignin, pine resin derivatives, and proteins, have so far been investigated for the preparation of bio-based polymers. Among the various sources of bio-based feedstock, vegetable oils are one of the most widely used starting materials in the polymer industry due to their easy availability, low toxicit...

In this work, cellulose acetate (CA) nanofiltration (NF) membranes were prepared via non-solvent phase inversion technique (NIPS). Polymer concentration was varied from 22 to 25 wt% in order to study its effect on the membrane properties. The fabricated membranes were characterized in terms of morphological analysis using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), contact angle, water content, water p...