Polymers and nanoparticles for therapeutic delivery – IP 1740

Aromaticπ-electron conjugated polymers (CPs) are innovative fluorescent materials thathave a high potential as therapeutic carriers. Because of excellentphotophysical properties, such as high brightness and sensing ability, andexcellent biophysical properties, such as biocompatibility, nontoxicity, high cellularinteraction, and ease of entry, CPs have been used for live cell and tissueimaging, biochemical sensing, and gene and drug delivery. Biodegradable CPs can be formed by introducingflexible degradable functional groups along the backbone of the CPs. Conventional method of synthesizing CPs with diversefunctional group is tedious and problematic. In addition to intrinsicsynthetic challenge of optimizing polymerization conditions for each monomer,the resulting CP with different functional group will have different molecularweight and polydispersity, which will influence their physical and biophysicalbehaviors. FIU inventors have synthesized modulated guanidinesubstituted polymer and modulated guanidine substituted nanoparticle withguanidine moieties. These polymers and nanoparticles can be prepared by directamination of a N-Boc protected guanidine substituted conjugated polymer ornanoparticle, where an amine or alcohol is combined in solution or suspensionwith the protected conjugated polymer or nanoparticle and the resulting mixtureis heated.The synthetic method can beapplied to a wide range of nanoparticles, synthetic and natural polymers, aswell as conjugated and non-conjugated polymers having a flexible backbone. Anne Laure Schmitt Olivier aschmitt@fiu.edu 305-348-5948