Date/Time
Date(s) - 09/30/2010
8:00 pm - 9:00 pm

The need exists for resorbable medical devices that combine mechanical integrity, shape memory, and controlled drug delivery with tailored degradation characteristics. While standard biodegradable polymer compositions have frequently led to unwanted compromise in one or more of the targeted characteristics, carefully designed polymeric nanocomposites offer the potential to achieve multiple targets but not without design challenges. This talk will present several “bottom-up” approaches toward the development of biodegradable shape memory polymers incorporating polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) for medical applications. First, I will present the synthetic strategies used to incorporate POSS into a variety of controlled-architecture polymer formats, both degradable and non-degradable, included telechelic, block, multiblock, and inverse telechelic networks. The structure-property relationships developed for such POSS architectures will be elaborated, with an emphasis on the design rules learned. Then the talk will focus on two particular biodegradable POSS systems and their “stories”: (1) POSS thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPUs) for controlled drug delivery coatings, and (2) Shape memory and biodegradable POSS networks prepared by photocrosslinking.