Graduate Seminars"Biomimetic, Molecularly Imprinted Hydrogels for Recognition of High Molecular Weight Proteins for Biosensor, Drug Delivery, and Tissue Engineering Applications" Nicole M. Bergmann Thursday March 17, 2005 - 9:30 am 1175 Benedum HallAlthough molecularly imprinted (MIP) materials have shown promise for the recognition of small molecular weight molecules, the development of these materials for the recognition of macromolecules, such as high molecular weight proteins or even whole cells has been sparse. Problems that exist in the imprinting of macromolecules include low solubility in organic solvents, sensitivity to polymerization conditions, and low percentage of template extraction due to diffusional limitations. Nonetheless, a biomaterial that can specifically bind these macromolecules would be useful as recognitive elements in systems ranging from separations to biological assays and even as a tissue engineering scaffold to recognize free blood proteins. MIP polymers are stable at ambient conditions due to utilization of synthetic polymers as recognition elements, and this feature could be advantageous over current recognitive systems that require biological components for recognition. . In this research, hydrogels were prepared in an aqueous environment in the presence of large molecular weight templates lysozyme and bovine serum albumin. Different ratios of the functional monomers acrylamide, methacrylic acid, and 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate were investigated for their affects on the imprinting process. In addition, the percentage of crosslinker, N,N’-methylenebisacrylamide, was investigated to determine optimal concentration to allow template extraction while still maintaining specific recognition of the template protein. Varying these components gave an optimal distribution of interactions to yield polymers with specific recognition capabilities for both lysozyme and bovine serum albumin when compared to non-imprinted controls. Future work will seek to understand the interactions of imprinted polymer networks with biological molecules. In addition, research will seek to incorporate MIP networks as recognitive elements into microscale bionsensor platforms, responsive drug delivery systems, and synthetic scaffolds for tissue regeneration. It is believed that incorporation of MIP polymers into the above systems will yield highly recognitive therapeutic devices that could be specifically tailored to recognize a wide range of biological molecules. |
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