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Updated: Aug 10, 2026

Fabricating Superhydrophobic Polymeric Materials for Biomedical Applications
Published on: August 28, 2015
Synthesis of novel cationic poly(ethylene glycol) containing lipids
U Schulze1, H W Schmidt, C R Safinya
1Materials Department, Physics Department, and Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Program, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA.
Abstract:
In this paper, the synthesis of novel divalent cationic lipids with poly(ethylene glycol) segments is described. The lipids consist of an unsaturated double-chain hydrophobic moiety based on 3, 4-dihydroxy benzoic acid, attached to a hydrophilic poly(ethylene glycol) spacer which contains a divalent cationic end group. As poly(ethylene glycol) spacers monodisperse triethylene glycol and telechelic poly(ethylene glycol)s with an average degree of polymerization of 9, 23, and 45 were used. The divalent cationic end group was attached by coupling a protected dibasic amino acid to the PEG spacer and following cleavage of the protecting groups. These novel class of cationic lipids is of particular interest for nonviral gene delivery applications.
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