Bioinspired Materials Science and Engineering

6Self‐assembly of Polylactic Acid‐based Amphiphilic Block Copolymers and Their Application in the Biomedical Field

Lin Xiao, Lixia Huang, Li Liu, and Guang Yang*

College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China

6.1 Introduction

Polylactide (PLA) and its copolymers, such as poly(lactide‐co‐glycolide) (PLGA), are hydrophobic aliphatic polyesters possessing superior biocompatibility and biodegradability. They show no cytotoxicity in vitro and very low immunogenicity in vivo and thus have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for clinical use. They can be degraded by hydrolysis or enzymolysis under physiological conditions with a variable degradation rate depending on their molecular weights and crystallinity. Moreover, they have rather good mechanical properties and processability. These unique properties have facilitated their applications in biomedical field as drug delivery systems, surgery sutures, bone fixation implants, and tissue engineering scaffolds [1–6]. However, the hydrophobicity of PLA and its copolymers has impeded their applications in the biomedical field, especially as functional drug/cell delivery systems in the body, because of the nonspecific interaction between the PLA particles and serum components, leading to their severe aggregation and rapid clearance from the circulation by the reticuloendothelial system following systemic administration rapid clearance [7–9]. The introduction of ...