Synthesis Of Functional Polymers And Its Application In Nanomedicine

Polymer nanomaterials have been widely studied as a mainstream direction in multidisciplinary research in recent twenty years. In particular, they are widely explored as nanoscaled drug-delivery vehicles in the treatment of cancers. However, most of the studies focus on the use of polymer nano-vehicles for solid cancers, and it is rare for the liquid cancer, i.e., blood cancer. This thesis has therefore carefully explored the application of a family of polymer nanomaterials for blood cancer.Block copolymers such as poly(ethylene glycol)-b-poly(4-vinyl pyridine) with functional COOH groups at the end of poly(ethylene glycol) had been synthesized by atomic transfer radical polymerization. The block copolymer further assemble into polymer micelles with poly(4-vinyl pyridine) as the core and poly(ethylene glycol) as the shell. As the COOH groups were located at the outer surface of polymer micelles, some targeting molecules could be easily connected to the micelle by chemical reactions. Here an antibody related to a blood cancer was studied as a model application. It was found that the resulting nano-carriers loaded with anti-cancer drugs were stable and could effectively target the cancer cells.On the other hand, this thesis has also studied the application of polymer for organic solar cells.