NSEC, Materials Science Program and MRSEC Seminar

Christopher Ober, Cornell. Polymer brushes are ideal materials for interfacing with biological systems as they share many of the same molecular components and properties. Polymer brushes, or surface tethered polymers, provide remarkable screening power in shielding a substrate from the environment through both steric and charge interactions. However, the majority of biomolecular species will still non-specifically bind to polymer brush surfaces unless some care is given to molecular design.