Biodegradable polymeric assemblies for biomedical materials

Abstract

Recently, self-assembled systems using biodegradable polymers at the nanometer scale, such as microspheres, nanospheres, polymer micelles, nanogels, and polymersomes, have attracted much attention especially in biomedical fields. To construct such self-assembled systems, it is extremely important to have precise control of intermolecular noncovalent interactions, such as hydrophobic interactions based on their amphiphilic molecular structures. Biodegradable polymers, especially aliphatic polyesters such as polylactide, polyglycolide, poly(ε-caplolactone) and their copolymers, have been used as biomedical materials for a long time. This chapter is mainly focused on aliphatic polyesters and related polymers, and reviews the synthetic methods for amphiphilic biodegradable polymers containing aliphatic polyesters as components. Moreover, the application of various types of self-assembly systems using amphiphilic biodegradable copolymers such as micro-or nanosized particles (microspheres, nanospheres, polymer micelles, nanogels, polymersomes), supramolecular physically interlocked systems, and stimuli-responsive systems for biomedical use such as drug delivery systems are also reviewed. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.