Presenter: Julien Nicolas (Institut Galien Paris-Sud, UMR CNRS 8612, Univ Paris-Sud, Faculty of Pharmacy, 5 rue Jean-Baptiste Clément, 92290 Châtenay-Malabry, France)
Topic: Design of vinyl polymers for biomedical applications
Time: 2:30 PM, Sept. 17th (Monday)
Location: Conference Room B, BLDG 909-1F
Abstract
We report on the design of a new class of polymer prodrug nanocarriers by using the drug-initiated method, which consists in the controlled growth of vinyl polymers from anticancer drug-bearing initiators to prepare well-defined and high drug content polymer prodrug nanoparticles with in vitro and in vivo anticancer activity. This method is robust and versatile as it was applied to: (i) different drugs including Gemcitabine, Cladribine and Paclitaxel; (ii) different polymers and (iii) different drug/polymer linkers to adjust the drug release kinetics and thus the cytotoxicity. Fluorescent polymer prodrug nanocarriers can also be produced in a similar fashion from a fluorescent dye-bearing initiator. This approach was further developed to yield heterotelechelic polymer prodrugs for combination therapy.
We also present our recent achievements to confer degradability to vinyl polymers by using controlled radical ring-opening polymerization using cyclic ketene acetal monomers. In particular, 2-methylene-4-phenyl-1,3-dioxolane was copolymerized with oligo(ethylene glycol) methyl ether methacrylate or methyl methacrylate by NMP to produce well-defined, non-cytotoxic and degradable copolymers. This approach was applied to the drug-initiated synthesis of degradable polymer prodrug nanocarriers with tunable cytotoxicity towards cancer cells. Other radical copolymerization systems leading to degradable vinyl materials will also be presented.
Biography
Julien Nicolas completed his Ph.D. in 2005 under the supervision of Prof. Bernadette Charleux at the University Pierre and Marie Curie in Paris (France), where he studied nitroxide-mediated polymerization in homogeneous and aqueous dispersed media. He then joined the group of Prof. David M. Haddleton at the University of Warwick (U.K.), as a postdoctoral researcher to work in the field of polymer–protein bioconjugates. In 2007, he obtained a CNRS Researcher position at Institut Galien Paris-Sud (Univ. Paris-Sud) in Châtenay-Malabry (France) in the group of Prof. Patrick Couvreur and was promoted to CNRS Research Director in 2016. His current research activities lie in advanced macromolecular synthesis and in the design of polymer-based nanomedicines, especially degradable vinyl materials, polymer nanoparticles and polymer prodrugs. He is (co)author of more than 90 peer review articles in international journals, 8 patents, and 14 book chapters. In 2016, he was appointed Associate Editor of Chemistry of Materials (ACS). He was awarded with the French Polymer Society (GFP) / French Chemical Society (SCF) award in 2016, the Polymer Chemistry Lectureship award in 2017 and the Prix Novacap de l’Académie des Sciences in 2018.
Contact: Prof. Lichen Yin
Editor: Ming Lu