SEMINAR: CMCA Seminar Series: Polymer Brushes: �grafting to� tailor surfaces. Talk by Dr Swaminathan Iyer

Polymer brushes (or tethered polymers), first attracted attention in the 1950s when it was found that grafting polymer molecules to colloidal particles was a very effectiver way to prevent flocculation. The repulsive force between brushes arises ultimately from the high osmotic pressure inside the brushes. Subsequently it was found that polymer brushes could be useful in other applications such as new adhesive materials, protein-resistant biosurfaces, surfactants, responsive biointerfaces, controlled drug-delivery/release systems and thin film sensors. In this talk I will introduce the fundamentals of macromolecules tethered to surfaces in the brush regime and the thermodynamic/kinetic constraints associated with grafting polymers. Following this, I will propose the use of poly (glycidy methacrylate) (PGMA) as an anchoring platform to overcome some of the aforementioned limitations. Finally, I will talk about some of the recent developments/applications using this anchoring platform in colloidal state for drug delivery and multimodal imaging.