Design and development of polymeric micelles with cleavable links for intracellular drug delivery

Hua Wei, Ren-Xi Zhuo, Xian-Zheng Zhang, Design and development of polymeric micelles with cleavable links for intracellular drug delivery, Progress in Polymer Science, Available online 16 July 2012

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079670012000767

A comprehensive review of drug-loaded amphiphillic polymer micelles and the various strategies of delivery mostly involving degradation on various parts of the drug-loaded copolymers. 

Phenanthriplatin, a monofunctional DNA-binding platinum anticancer drug candidate with unusual potency and cellular activity profile

 http://www.pnas.org/content/109/30/11987.short?rss=1

1. Ga Young Park, 
2. Justin J. Wilson, 
3. Ying Song, and 
4. Stephen J. Lippard

A set of monofunctionalized platinum complexes were synthesized with the general formula: cis-[Pt(NH3)2(N-heterocycle)Cl]Cl. In particular, complexation to phenanthridin showed enhanced cytotoxic behaviour compared to other tested N-heterocycles, cisplatin, or oxaliplatin. Cellular uptake was shown to be higher likely as a result of the N-heterocycle. As well, in studies comparing binding of these complexes with 5'-deoxyguanosine monophosphate and N-acetyl methionine, the phenanthridin showed better binding to the nucleotide suggesting it might overcome drug resistance that results from interactions with sulfur based compounds.

Synthesis of Molecular Bottlebrushes by Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization with ppm Amounts of Cu Catalyst

Alper Nese, Yuanchao Li, Sergei S. Sheiko, and Krzysztof Matyjaszewski

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/mz3002484

Poly(n-butyl acrylate) side chains were grafted from a polymethacrylate backbone using ATRP catalyzed by ppm amounts of copper catalyst in conjunction with either ICAR (initiators for continuous activator regeneration) or SARA (supplemental activator and reducing agent). ICAR uses AIBN to regenerate the copper (I) active catalyst, and SARA uses copper (0) as a reducing agent to regenerate the copper (I) species from copper (II). 

Multiplexed Enrichment and Detection of Malarial Biomarkers Using a Stimuli-Responsive Iron Oxide and Gold Nanoparticle Reagent System

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/nn3015008

Michael Nash, John Waitumbi, Allan Hoffman, Paul Yager, and Patrick Stayton

The authors present a magnetic-gold nanoparticle antibody-conjugated detection system. Gold nanoparticles were functionalized with pNIPAAm. The free carboxyl end of the NIPAAm was conjugated to streptavidin. Equivalent amounts of biotinylated antibodies, streptavidin-AuNPs, and pNIPAAm-magnetic NP were added to human plasma samples. With heating, all NIPAAm collapses to form aggregates of both the gold and magnetic nanoparticles that can then be separated from supernatent by a magnet. The enriched mixture was then applyed to a immunoassay to quantify the amount of antibody successfully captured. They show that using this system, they can achieve a lower limit of detection with little increase in background noise. They also demonstrate the versatility of the system for detecting different biotargets and detecting multiple targets simultaneously.

A tissue-engineered jellyfish with biomimetic propulsion

 Janna C Nawroth, Hyungsuk Lee, Adam W Feinberg, Crystal M Ripplinger, Megan L McCain,  Anna Grosberg, John O Dabiri & Kevin Kit Parker Nature Biotechnology 2012 AOP

http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nbt.2269.html

This paper shows off a decent stab at designing a bioengineered jelly fish that swims around. After computational studies and weeks of aquarium observation, their final design incorporates  rat muscle tissue with a silicone polymer body and is fueled by pace makers activated by an external magnetic field. The result swims somewhat clumsily (As you can see in this Cool Video), but it is pretty darn cool as far as proofs of concept go.

One-Pot RAFT/“Click” Chemistry via Isocyanates: Efficient Synthesis of α-End-Functionalized Polymers

 Guillaume Gody, Christian Rossner, John Moraes, Philipp Vana, Thomas Maschmeyer, and Sébastien Perrier Journal of the American Chemical Society Article ASAP

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/ja3030643

This interesting paper introduces a new method for generating RAFT polymers with isocynate end-functionality that can be further reacted with alcohols or amines to yield a-functionalized polymers. The key to their method is a chain transfer agent (CTA) bearing a carbonyl-azide that rearranges in-situ to form the iso-cynate. The rearrangement is hypothesized to be driven by the fragmentation of the C-S bond during initiation. Interestingly, polymerization seems to be required for successful rearrangement judging by the degradation of the CTA when exposed to initiation conditions when no monomer is present. Their method produced isocynate end-functional polymers with reasonable PDIs as well as efficient coupling products when these polymers were reacted with alcohols and dibutyltin dilaurate as a catalyst. Amines were also coupled, though these reactions were not as efficient. Though this method may not necessarily be a true "click" reaction, it will definitely offer "tantalizing opportunities" to polymer chemists.

Design, Synthesis, and Biological Evaluation of Novel cRGD-Paclitazel Conjugates for Integrin-Assisted Drug Delivery

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/bc300164t

The authors synthesized and screened nine different RGD-based peptides (varying cyclic vs. linear, spacers, linkers, etc). They examined integrin-binding affinity, cytotoxicity, and comparison to free Paclitaxel in vivo. Their findings might be interesting for our work on targeted drug delivery.