Glycopolymers for Biomedical Applications

Carbohydrates are the key components of cell membranes and play major roles in cell-cell communication and in the interactions of pathogens such as viruses and bacteria. Interactions that occur at the cell surface between carbohydrates and lectins are very weak Kd = M), but can be enhanced by multivalency [5]. 

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S. Pearson, G. Chen and M. H. Stenzel, Chapter 1 Synthesis of glycopolymers in Engineered carbohydrate-based materials for biomedical applications, Ed. 

Yang Q (2011) Block glycopolymers and their self-assembly properties. In Narain R (ed) Engineered carbohydrate-based materials for biomedical applications. Wiley, Hoboken, pp 119-141. 

Multivalent glycopolymers as complex polymer architectures for biomedical applications are an emerging research field." The polyol structure of carbohydrates obviously leads to the concept of using ROPs for the synthesis of highly branched sugars, which dates back to the late 1950s with... 

Although classical ATRP has been a powerful technique for the synthesis of well-defined glycopolymers, the use of toxic Cu ions to control the polymerisation remains a concern for biomedical applications. Tedious purification steps are usually required to remove the catalyst and isolate the pure final glycopolymer. However, considerable efforts have recently been devoted to improving the purification strategies and decrease the amount of copper catalyst used in ATRP systems [86, 87]. Figure 1.7 presents selected examples of glycomonomers polymerised by ATRP. 

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