(236a) Polyampholyte Polymers As a Novel Nonfouling Biomaterial Platform

There is significant interest in the biomedical community for novel materials that are resistant to nonspecific protein adsorption.  Polyampholyte polymers are composed of mixtures of positively charged and negatively charged monomer subunits.  Our recent work has demonstrated that these systems have natural resistance to nonspecific protein adsorption when the charged monomer subunits are homogenously distributed throughout the material.  This has been demonstrated for polyampholyte systems consisting of polymer brush coatings, hydrogels, and electrospun fiber mesh systems.  In this presentation, each of these platforms will be discussed and the performance of the polyampholyte materials will be compared to other known nonfouling functional groups.  In addition to nonfouling, it is possible to engineer additional characteristics of the polyampholyte polymer systems through monomer selection criteria.  This has been demonstrated through specific protein conjugation investigations and mechanical property design.  These results will also be presented.  When combined, these unique features of polyampholyte polymer systems opens up a novel pathway for designing polymer based biomaterials for a wide range of biomedical applications.