Novel dopa-functionalized bioadhesives for internal medical applications

Abstract

First of all, I would like to express my most heartfelt gratitude to my supervisor, A/P Wang Dong-An, for his instructive advice and useful suggestions on my thesis, and his continuous support to my work. I am deeply grateful of his help in the completion of this thesis. Secondly, high tribute shall be paid to all my past and present colleagues for their suggestions and help, especially Dr Yvonne Peck for her patience and guidance, and Ms Yang Xia for her support. I am also deeply indebted to all the lecturers and professors for their direct and indirect help to me. Special thanks should go to my friends in Singapore and in China, especially to my boyfriend, Mr Li Hang, who endowed me with courage to overcome all the difficulties during my PhD studies. Finally and most importantly, it is my best pleasure to dedicate this thesis to my family for providing me their selfless support and fullest understanding. III SUMMARY Bioadhesives, such as tissue adhesives, hemostatic agents, and tissue sealants, have gained increasing popularity in different areas of clinical operations. Currently, bioadhesives have been widely applied in diverse clinical medications, including chronic organ leak repair, bleeding complications reduction, as well as wound closure and epidermal grafting. Following the revolutionary advancements of medical technologies in the last three decades, diverse bioadhesive formulations have been developed based on different design principles and conjugation systems, some of which have even been proceeded into commercial products and can be easily obtained by anyone recently. Since bioadhesives may directly contact with the receivers' intracorporeal tissue and organs, their safety has been considered the most important factor besides adhesive strength during the design and development processes. However, at the initial stage of bioadhesives' development decades ago, a lot has been emphasized on the functionalities of the products, which were exactly the adhesives' bonding strengths to adherent surfaces. Synthetic bioadhesives were largely developed with chemical-derived materials and organic solvents. Despite TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1 Introduction .