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Complex Coacervate-Based Materials For Biomedicine, Sarah L. Perry, Whitney C. Blocher

Chemical Engineering Faculty Publication Series

There has been increasing interest in complex coacervates for deriving and trans- porting biomaterials. Complex coacervates are a dense, polyelectrolyte-rich liq- uid that results from the electrostatic complexation of oppositely charged macroions. Coacervates have long been used as a strategy for encapsulation, par- ticularly in food and personal care products. More recent efforts have focused on the utility of this class of materials for the encapsulation of small molecules, pro- teins, RNA, DNA, and other biomaterials for applications ranging from sensing to biomedicine. Furthermore, coacervate-related materials have found utility in other areas of biomedicine, including cartilage mimics, tissue culture scaffolds, …