The HYBSAC project focuses on the synthesis of novel polymeric nanomaterials of natural polysaccharides covalently functionalized by synthetic, water soluble, responsive and biocompatible or biorelevant polymers. Reversible Addition Fragmentation Chain Transfer (RAFT) polymerization process will be the chosen controlled radical polymerization technique to facilitate the controlled attachment of functional polymer chains on polysaccharide chains, by grafting from or grafting to synthetic schemes, creating hybrid synthetic-biological polymers of advanced functionality and properties.
Self- and co-assembly processes, following principles from synthetic polymers physical chemistry, will provide self-organized nanoassemblies using the produced hybrid polymers. Detailed physicochemical studies in aqueous media should allow for gathering information on structure and formation routes of the designed nanostructures. Such nanoassemblies will be evaluated as nanocarriers for drugs, bioimaging agents or proteins, and also as nanocontainers for water organic/inorganic pollutants, and surface functionalization nanomaterials. Co-assembled structures from polysaccharides and RAFT-produced synthetic polymers will be also studied.
Co-assembly of functionalized polysaccharides with proteins and antibodies will lead to the creation of biofunctional nanoparticulate structures with biomimetic internal morphology and functionality for therapy and diagnostics. In parallel, hybrid organic-inorganic and biological-inorganic hybrid nanostructures will be formulated by co-assembly of functionalized polysaccharide materials and inorganic nanoparticles with optical/photophysical, magnetic, catalytic and antimicrobial properties.