Water Soluble Polymers for Medicine

Abstract

A number of general reviews have already been published on this topic and so the authors will present information on their approach and some results obtained. Polymers for medical uses are a traditional field at the Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry. However, crosslinked hydrophilic polymers ‐ so called hydrogels ‐ were the prevailing object in the past. Either as soft highly swollen materials for prothesis ‐ like soft contact lenses ‐ or heavily crosslinked macroporous beads designed as special sorbents or carriers of biologically active groups. Only a few years ago a research programme on soluble polymers was focussed mainly on general problems. The overall view about the main directions of the authors research is schematically presented on Fig. 1. It also shows the two types of polymers the authors are using in their experiments. The first one poly[N(2‐hydroxypropyl)methacrylamide]3a was chosen from the set of N‐substituted acryl‐and methacrylamides4 because of simple preparation and purification of the monomer. The other is a polyamide (polypeptide) described by Neri et al. in 1973.5 It is more hydrophilic and provides a good possibility to prepare a whole set of derivatives from a common polymeric intermediate ‐ polysuccinimide.

Macromolecular Antiproliferative Agents Featuring Dicarboxylato-Chelated Platinum

“…The two polymer classes chosen, both featuring linear polyamide-type main chains, were (1) polyaspartamides derived from polysuccinimide by nucleophilic ring-opening steps, and (2) polyamidoamines obtained by Michael addition polymerization of bisacrylamides with primary and/or secondary amine comonomers. The polyaspartamides were pioneered in the 'Seventies by Neri and Antoni [54,55] and others [56][57][58], whereas Ferruti's laboratory [59,60] initiated and promoted work on the polyamidoamines. Subsequently, the two carrier classes were further developed by our group [61,62].…”

Polymeric Micelles, a Promising Drug Delivery System to Enhance Bioavailability of Poorly Water-Soluble Drugs

“…Among these approaches, polymeric micelles (PMs) have gained considerable attention in the last two decades as a multifunctional nanotechnology-based delivery system for poorly water-soluble drugs. The application of PMs as drug delivery system was pioneered by the group of H. Ringsdorf in 1984 [19] and subsequently used by Kataoka in the early 1990s through the development of doxorubicin-conjugated block copolymer micelles [20]. Due to their nanoscopic size, ability to solubilize hydrophobic drugs in large amounts and achieve site-specific delivery, PMs hold promise to obtain desirable biopharmaceutical and pharmacokinetic properties of drugs [21] and enhance their bioavailability.…”

Poly (ethylene-co-vinyl alcohol)-based polymeric thermo-responsive nanocarriers for controlled delivery of epirubicin to hepatocellular carcinoma

“…PMs keep a promise to get fascinating biopharmaceutical and pharmacokinetic profile of drugs(4) and enhance their bioavailability due to their size, high and excellent capacity to solubilize and load the hydrophobic drug and good site-specific delivery.…”

“…We utilized succinate and PEG succinate modified EVOH (PEGS-EVOHS) conjugate targeted by retinoic acid (RA) to manufacture biocompatible thermoresponsive polymeric nanocarriers of epirubicin (EPI) for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma. The toxicity of PEGS-EVOHS-RA micelles were tested on HepG2 human hepatocellular carcinoma cell line using 3-45-dimethylthiazol-2-yl]-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay at temperature higher than 37 °C (45 °C). Using the synergistic effect of active and passive targeting strategies, these nanomicelles are predicted to show a long circulation and accumulation in the target site.…”