Abstracts Biological Sciences

Degradation of Enzyme-Sensitive Electrospunm PEG Diacrylate Fibers

by Wade Ingram

Here I describe a novel way to create enzyme sensitive electrospun fibers using poly (ethylene glycol) and amino acids to generate polymer fibers with a degradable peptide bond. The enzyme MMPT1 is used to degrade the peptide bond that exists between the amino acids in the backbone of the polymer. The fibers were shown to have a slow degradation of longer than a day in a buffer solution, while they degraded quickly in a matter of hours in the presence of MMPT1. Further testing needs to be done to determine efficacy of the fibers for use in drug delivery, where they can be tailored to provide controlled release of the medicine.