Date of Graduation

Summer 2018

Degree

Master of Science in Chemistry

Department

Chemistry and Biochemistry

Committee Chair

Keiichi Yoshimatsu

Abstract

Herein, I present my work towards two goals: shear force-responsive materials and sugarconjugated fluorescent probes for bacterial identification applications. The first work is on the development of stimuli-responsive polymers that allow for precise control over the release of encapsulated material. Stimuli-responsive polymers are becoming increasingly important in drug delivery and other applications. However there have been few reports on shear force-responsive micellar systems. I show the synthesis, and characterization by 1H and 13C NMR of four macro-chain transfer agents (macro-CTAs), one of which has not been previously reported. The resulting macro-CTAs were used in polymerization of vinyl acetate to yield amphiphilic diblock copolymers. The preliminary shear forceresponsiveness of these polymers is evaluated using the FRET pair DiO and DiI as fluorescent reporters of location. The second work aims to outline the steps required for the synthesis of sugar-fluorophore conjugates, which contain one of three monosaccharides: glucose, mannose, and galactose covalently attached to one of three fluorophores: rhodamine B, fluorescein, and 6-hydroxycoumarin. The long-term goal of this work is to use the synthesized sugar-fluorophore conjugates for bacterial identification utilizing ratiometric analysis of carbohydrate binding/internalization rate.

Keywords

RAFT polymerization, shear force-responsive, sugar, fluorophore, bacterial identification

Subject Categories

Materials Chemistry | Organic Chemistry | Polymer Chemistry

Copyright

© Jacob Ryan Blankenship

Download

Open Access

Share

COinS