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Review
. 2022 Jan;34(2):e2105063.
doi: 10.1002/adma.202105063. Epub 2021 Oct 5.

Bioactive Synthetic Polymers

Kenward Jung  1 , Nathaniel Corrigan  1 , Edgar H H Wong  1 , Cyrille Boyer  1
Affiliations
Review

Bioactive Synthetic Polymers

Kenward Jung et al. Adv Mater. 2022 Jan.

Abstract

Synthetic polymers are omnipresent in society as textiles and packaging materials, in construction and medicine, among many other important applications. Alternatively, natural polymers play a crucial role in sustaining life and allowing organisms to adapt to their environments by performing key biological functions such as molecular recognition and transmission of genetic information. In general, the synthetic and natural polymer worlds are completely separated due to the inability for synthetic polymers to perform specific biological functions; in some cases, synthetic polymers cause uncontrolled and unwanted biological responses. However, owing to the advancement of synthetic polymerization techniques in recent years, new synthetic polymers have emerged that provide specific biological functions such as targeted molecular recognition of peptides, or present antiviral, anticancer, and antimicrobial activities. In this review, the emergence of this generation of bioactive synthetic polymers and their bioapplications are summarized. Finally, the future opportunities in this area are discussed.

Keywords: anticancer polymers; antimicrobial polymers; antiviral polymers; bioactive synthetic polymers; molecular recognition.

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