Topic：Synthetic Polymers and Hydrogels for Biomedical Applications

Speaker：Harald Stöver

Professor, Chemistry and Chemical Biology

McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada

Time：2014.10.14  15:00

Location：907#1101

Abstract：

Water-soluble synthetic polymersare a rich field for both fundamental and applied research. The increasing availability of hydrophilic, anionic, cationic, and reactive comonomers, in conjunction with controlled radical copolymerizations such as ATRP and RAFT, gives access to materials withboth intruiging properties, and exciting applications in biomedicine.

This talk will describe our work towards reactive polymers that can be used to encapsulate living cells, in pursuit of cell-based therapies for endocrine disorders such as insulin-dependant diabetes. Examples will include crosslinking between polymers pairs based on electrophile – nucleophile reactions as well as Diels-Alder coupling. Emphasis will also be on the responsiveness of these network-forming polymers to pH, salinity, and temperature,and on the properties of the resulting hydrogels, both in vitro and in vivo.