Northerner
Admin (Retired)
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
Do you have particular biological targets or problems you want to solve?
Most of our interest has been in the area of diabetes, and I think that?s what sets our work apart from a lot of other smart polymer chemists. Most people are working on cancer but diabetes is also a problem of growing importance. The polymers we work with respond to sugar, and under a high concentration of sugar they become hydrophilic. So if you can make an aggregate that?s held together by these polymers, when there?s a lot of sugar around, they become water-soluble and dissolve, potentially releasing insulin from inside. We like this approach because it combines the glucose monitoring and insulin production into one feedback step.
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2014/02/interview-brent-sumerlin-smart-polymers-diabetes
Most of our interest has been in the area of diabetes, and I think that?s what sets our work apart from a lot of other smart polymer chemists. Most people are working on cancer but diabetes is also a problem of growing importance. The polymers we work with respond to sugar, and under a high concentration of sugar they become hydrophilic. So if you can make an aggregate that?s held together by these polymers, when there?s a lot of sugar around, they become water-soluble and dissolve, potentially releasing insulin from inside. We like this approach because it combines the glucose monitoring and insulin production into one feedback step.
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2014/02/interview-brent-sumerlin-smart-polymers-diabetes