Engineered Carbohydrate-Based Materials for Biomedical Applications: Polymers, Surfaces, Dendrimers, Nanoparticles, and Hydrogels

This book addresses the need for a comprehensive book on the design, synthesis, and characterization of synthetic carbohydrate-based polymeric materials along with their biological applications. The first two chapters cover the synthesis and self-assembly of glycopolymers and different techniques for creating these synthetic polymers. Subsequent chapters account for the preparation of block copolymers, branched glycopolymers, glycosurfaces, glycodendrimers, cationic glycopolymers, bioconjugates, glyconanoparticles and hydrogels. While these chapters comprehensively review the synthetic and characterization methods of those carbohydrate-based materials, their biological applications are discussed in detail.

RAVIN NARAIN, PhD, is an Associate Professor at the University of Alberta and an Associate Investigator of the Alberta Ingenuity Centre for Carbohydrate Science (AICCS) in Alberta, Canada. His research is focused on the development of new polymeric and nanomaterials for biomedical applications, and he has published more than forty-five peer-reviewed papers. Dr. Narain is also a reviewer for more than sixteen journals, including Journal of Polymer Science Part A: Polymer Chemistry (Wiley), Journal of the American Chemical Society, Biomacromolecules, Macromolecules, Chemistry of Materials, Langmuir, Bioconjugate Chemistry, ACS Nano, Nanoletters, Nano Today, Chemical Communications, and Soft Matter.