Synthesis and Characterization of Biodegradabile Polymeric Materials for Active Agent Delivery Constructs

The preparation of new polymeric materials for biomedical applications is an extremely interesting research topic, which involves a variety of factors strongly correlated to there specific application there interaction with the biological environment. Therefore, this discipline is at the convergence of different knowledge fields, such as chemistry, biology, and material science. Amphiphilic block copolymers are among the most investigated polymeric biomaterials, since they allow for a careful tuning of the chemical characteristics and design of the molecular architecture and consequently of the required properties of the final material. This work was focused on the preparation of biodegradable amphiphilic block copolymers with different architectures and composition; Pluronics (PEO-PPO-PEO triblock copolymers) or poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) and poly(ƒÕ-caprolactone) (PCL) or poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) were used as hydrophilic segments and hydrophobic segments, respectively. Such components were chosen for their well established characteristics in terms of physico-chemical properties and biocompatibility. Polymeric materials with a range of different final properties were obtained by selecting suitable synthetic strategies and compositions.