Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Development Of A Scalable Synthesis Of Hp-Β-Cd Pluronic Polyrotaxanes, Joseph L. Skulsky, Elizabeth A. Slepko, Bradley P. Loren, David H. Thompson

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Polyrotaxanes are polymers that have macrocycles threaded onto them, analogous to beads threaded onto a string. These materials are used for a variety of different biomedical applications.^1-3 The Thompson group has been developing 2-hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin (HP-β-CD) polyrotaxanes as therapeutics for the treatment of Niemann-Pick Type C (NPC) disease. NPC is a debilitating genetic disorder where cholesterol accumulates in the lysosomes of cells.⁴ Developing a scalable process is crucial for the advancement of these materials as NPC therapeutics. The goal of this project is to optimize the only protocol for the synthesis of HP-β-CD/Pluronic polyrotaxanes in order to develop a …