Characterizing novel polymers

In the world of polymer research nothing stands still for very long. The number of applications and new polymers being developed every day is just astounding. Just look at the world around you and everything will have some sort of polymer or resin component: your car, your computer, your iPod – even your teeth.

Custom-made polymer characterization

One of the biggest areas of advancement for polymers has got to be in medicine With their inertness, porosity and biocompatibility, they are ideal for producing medical devices and drug delivery systems. Take for example drug eluting stents, now commonly used in cardiovascular medicine. This technology has revolutionized the way some cardiac patients are treated and has greatly improved clinical outcomes.

Custom-made polymers produced for specific applications need good characterization and analysis methods. Using GPC and molecular interaction data polymers can be characterized much more quickly and easily.

Medical polymer research    

The Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh makes full use of the technology available from Malvern Instruments for their molecular weight and polydispersity measurements. The Pittsburgh research focuses on the synthesis of new polymers to control the release of growth factors that regulate cell activity and body function.

For the Pittsburgh team, the applications and technical expertise provided by Malvern Instruments is a significant factor in their use of the company’s Viscotek gel permeation chromatography (GPC) system to characterize polymer molecular weight, prior to applying the Zetasizer Nano for zeta potential measurements to study inter-molecular interactions.

To find out more about the polymer research being conducted at Pittsburgh access the recently published press release: Pittsburgh researchers combine Viscotek GPC and Zetasizer Nano in work on novel polymers for drug delivery