Zwitterionic Amino Acid-Derived Polyacrylates as Smart Materials Exhibiting Cellular Specificity and Therapeutic Activity.

The synthesis of new amino acid-containing, cell-specific, therapeutically active polymers is presented. Amino acids served as starting material for the preparation of tailored polymers with different amino acids in the side chain. The reversible addition-fragmentation chain-transfer (RAFT) polymerization of acrylate monomers yielded polymers of narrow size distribution ( ≤ 1.