Poly(oligo(ethylene glycol) vinyl acetate)s: a versatile class of thermoresponsive and biocompatible polymers

Polymers with a thermally triggered phase transition are important in the design of materials for biological applications, where their behavior can be used to trigger release or (dis)assembly events. Despite their advantages, a system with tunable thermal response, end-group reactive sites, low toxicity, and controlled main-chain degradability has not been realized, yet this would be a significant advance. The versatile new poly(oligo(ethylene glycol) vinyl acetate)s are presented with excellent control over their molecular properties obtained through RAFT/MADIX polymerization. Furthermore, we demonstrate structure-controlled thermal transitions, conjugation to human lysozyme through the retained end-group, and moreover show that this class of polymers can uniquely be copolymerized with 2-methylene-1,3-dioxepane (MDO) to generate polymers in which the degradability and cloud point can be independently tuned to create materials that display the same cloud point but degrade differently.