| The past few years have witnessed considerable growth in synthetic polymer chemistry and physics, biomaterials science, and nano-scale engineering. Research on polypeptide multilayer films, coatings, and microcapsules is located at the intersection of these areas and are promising materials for applications in medicine, biotechnology, environmental science. Most envisioned applications of polypeptide multilayers have a biomedical bent. This dissertation on polypeptide multilayer film applications covers key points of polypeptides as materials, means of polymer production, film preparation, film characterization methods, and key points of current research in basic science. Both commercial and designed peptides have been used to fabricate films for in-vitro applications such as antimicrobial coatings and cell culture coatings and also microcapsules for drug delivery applications. Other areas of product development include artificial red blood cells, anisotropic coatings, enantioselective membranes, and artificial viruses. |
