SYNTHESIS AND CHARACTERIZATION OF WELL DEFINED POLY(PROPYLENE FUMARATE) AND POLY (ETHYLENE GLYCOL) BLOCK COPOLYMERS

摘要

In one or more embodiments, the present invention provides a low molecular weight, non-toxic, resorbable poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG)-block-poly(propylene fumarate) (PPF) diblock copolymers and poly(propylene fumarate) (PPF)-block-poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG)-block-poly(propylene fumarate) (PPF) triblock copolymers (and related methods for their making and use) that permits hydration for the formation of such things as hydrogels and has constrained and predictable material properties suitable for 3D printing and drug delivery applications. Using continuous digital light processing (cDLP) hydrogels the diblock and triblock copolymers can be photochemically printed from an aqueous solution into structures having a 10-fold increase in elongation at break compared to traditional diethyl fumarate (DEF) based printing. Furthermore, PPF-PEG-PPF triblock hydrogels have also been found in vitro to be biocompatible across a number of engineered MC3T3, NIH3T3, and primary Schwann cells.