AUTHOR=Lu Zhihui , Guo Jinshan 

TITLE=Growing Polymer Vesicles Generated by Polymerization Induced Self-Assembly Coupled With a Living Chemical Reactor

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology

VOLUME=8

YEAR=2020

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/bioengineering-and-biotechnology/articles/10.3389/fbioe.2020.01018

DOI=10.3389/fbioe.2020.01018

ISSN=2296-4185

ABSTRACT=<p>Chemical oscillatory reactions have attracted intensive attention due to their autonomous, continuous, and periodic features. Herein, the radicals generated in Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) oscillator was used to initiate RAFT (reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer) polymerization of 2-methoxyethyl acrylate (MEA) extending from hydrophilic poly(ethylene glycol) chain transfer agent (PEG-CTA) to give amphiphilic block copolymer, which self-assembled into collective objects with a size ranging from sub-micron to micron. Small-to-giant polymer vesicles could be generated using the above-mentioned BZ-PISA technology, the encapsulation of active BZ recipe into the vesicles also endorses the vesicles with growing features with potential for drug delivery and biomedical applications.</p>