DeFrates, J. Engstrom, N.A. Sarma, A. Umar, J. Shin, W. Xie, D. Pochan, A. Omar, P.B. Messersmith, “The influence of molecular design on structure-property relationships of a supramolecular polymer prodrug”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, e2208593119 (2022). LINK
Congratulations to Kelsey, Joakim, Nivedina, Athiyya, Jisoo, Weiran, Darrin and Ahmad on their paper in PNAS on structure-property relationships of a supramolecular polymer prodrug. The prodrug consists of a linear water soluble PEG polymer coupled to a therapeutic drug that enhances tissue regeneration through upregulation of HIF-1a. Because of the hydrophobic nature of the drug, it functions as both structure-directing and therapeutic agent. Using a combination of benchtop experimental and computational modeling techniques, we report the effect of prodrug architecture and drug content on self-assembly structure, drug release and cell uptake. The study was a collaboration with the groups of Prof. Ahmad Omar (UC Berkeley MSE) and Prof. Darrin Pochan (Univ. Delaware MSE). Congratulations to all of the coauthors!
If you want to learn more about how we use this system to regenerate tissues, please see our other papers:
Science Translational Medicine 2015
Plus our review on manipulating cellular oxygen-sensing pathways for regeneration: Biomaterials 2021