Amino acid derived biopolymers: Recent advances and biomedical applications

Over the past few years, amino acids (AA) have emerged as promising biomaterials for the synthesis of functional polymers. Owing to the diversity of functional groups in amino acids, various polymerization methods may be used to make a wide range of well-defined functional amino-acid/peptide-based optically active polymers with varying polymer lengths, compositions, and designs. When incorporated with chirality and self-assembly, they offer a wide range of applications and are particularly appealing in the field of drug delivery, tissue engineering, and biosensing. There are several classes of these polymers that include polyamides (PA), polyesters (PE), poly(ester-amide)s (PEA)s, polyurethanes (PU)s, poly(depsipeptide)s (PDP)s, etc. They offer the ability to control functionality, conjugation, crosslinking, stimuli responsiveness, and tuneable mechanical/thermal properties. In this review, we present the recent advancements in the synthesis strategies for obtaining these amino acid-derived bio-macromolecules, their self-assembly properties, and the wealth of prevalent applications.