Date of Award
5-2020
Degree Type
Honors College Thesis
Department
Polymers and High Performance Materials
First Advisor
Yoan C. Simon, Ph.D.
Advisor Department
Polymers and High Performance Materials
Abstract
Hydrogels are hydrophilic, three-dimensional materials used as platforms for various biomedical applications such as drug delivery, biosensors, or as scaffolds in tissue engineering. The ability to degrade on demand in response to biological cues is particularly attractive whether dealing with microgels or if one aims to release an active ingredient from a scaffolding material. For instance, many cancer-remediation drug delivery platforms leverage the high concentration of glutathione, a thiol-containing tripeptide, found in cancerous cells. In this work, poly(ethylene glycol) acrylate hydrogels were fabricated using dithiomaleimide (DTM) moieties. DTMs are known to undergo thiol-exchange reactions favoring the dissolution of the hydrogel in the presence of thiols. Herein, we study the role of DTM functionality, and thereby crosslink density, on the mechanical properties of these hydrogels and the rate of dissolution in the presence of thiols including glutathione using rheology and nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR). The use of DTM as a crosslinker in multi-respo
Copyright
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Recommended Citation
Thapa, Kundu, "Thiol-induced degradation of hydrogels utilizing multiresponsive dithiomaleimides crosslinkers" (2020). Honors Theses. 739.
https://aquila.usm.edu/honors_theses/739