Biodegradable thermogelling copolymer hydrogels have great applicative potential in areas such as sustained drug release, gene delivery and tissue engineering. These injectable materials can be implanted in the human body with minimal surgical intervention. The thermosensitive copolymers have been incorporated with a variety of biocompatible and biodegradable components such as poly(D,L-lactic ...

Lineal (poloxamers or Pluronic®) or X-shaped (poloxamines or Tetronic®) amphiphilic tri-block copolymers of poly(ethylene oxide) and poly(propylene oxide) (PEO-PPO-PEO) have been broadly explored for controlled drug delivery in different regenerative medicine approaches. The ability of these copolymers to self-assemble as micelles and to undergo sol-to-gel transitions upon heating has endowed t...

Block copolymers offer an interesting platform to study chemically triggered transitions in self-assembled structures. We have previously reported the oxidative degradation of vesicles made of poly(propylene sulfide)-poly(ethylene glycol) (PPS-PEG) copolymers. Here we propose a mechanism for vesicle degradation deduced from copolymer conformational changes occurring at the air/water interface i...

Pluronic poly(ethylene oxide)-b-poly(propylene oxide)-b-poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO-PPO-PEO) block copolymers are grafted with poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) by free radical polymerization of vinyl pyrrolidone with simultaneous chain transfer to the Pluronic in dioxane. This modified polymer has both thermal responsiveness and remarkable capacity to interact with a wide variety of hydrophilic and hydrop...

Two amino-terminated amphiphilic copolymers, M600 and M1000, with different ethylene oxide to propylene oxide EO/PO ratios, 1/9 and 19/3, respectively, were coupled by thioctic acid, which allows an excellent affinity with gold surface. Then, amphiphilic thermally responsive gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) were prepared either by ligands exchange on precursor gold nanoparticles or by direct reductio...

In the past few years, an increasing number of in situ-forming systems have been reported in the literature for various biomedical applications, including drug delivery, cell encapsulation, and tissue repair. There are several possible mechanisms that lead to in situ gel formation: solvent exchange, UV-irradiation, ionic cross-linkage, pH change, and temperature modulation. The thermosensitive ...

We report the design, synthesis, morphology, phase behavior, and mechanical properties of semicrystalline, polyolefin-based block copolymers. By using living, stereoselective insertion polymerization catalysts, syndiotactic polypropylene-block-poly(ethylene-co-propylene)-block-syndiotactic polypropylene and isotactic polypropylene-block-regioirregular polypropylene-block-isotactic polypropylene...

BACKGROUND Cationic copolymers consisting of polycations linked to nonionic amphiphilic block polymers have been evaluated as nonviral gene delivery systems, and a large number of different polymers and copolymers of linear, branched, and dendrimeric architectures have been tested in terms of their suitability and efficacy for in vitro and in vivo transfection. However, the discovery of new pot...