Photocrosslinked hydrogel blend surface coatings

Abstract

Hydrogel polymer blends including precursors and crosslinked forms of the compositions. The blends provide an improved approach to achieve high quality, uniform coatings with better commercial viability than other approaches including copolymerization. Applications include mass spectral analysis of biomolecular analytes such as proteins. Dextran and acrylamide systems are preferred. Benzophenone groups can be used as photocrosslinking groups. Photoinitiators are not needed. Functionalities which can selectively bind to biomolecular analytes are included.

Description

Background of the invention [0001] The term "hydrogel" generally refers to a hydrophilic cross-linked organic polymer material (ie, a hydrophilic polymer network) that swells in water and contains water (see, for example, WO00 / 66265 and US 6,613,234 (Voute) to Ciphergen Biosystems) . Hydrogels have a variety of commercial applications, such as in contact lenses, sensors, tissue adhesives, drug delivery, dressings and surface coatings. See, eg, US 6,017,577 to Hostettler et al. In particular, hydrogel surface coatings are used in biomedical devices such as catheters, catheter bulbs and stents, as described in US 5,601,538 to Demm. Hydrogels can be applied to a surface as a continuous layer or in a pattern of discrete areas (eg, gel "chips" or "pads"). [0002] The unique property of hydrogels to swell deeply in water, forming structurally stable but liquid-compatible structures, stems from their lightly cross-linked nature, which in turn stems from their method of preparatio...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

But there are challenges because sometimes the presence of one useful functional group in a hydrogel system can interfere with the use of another functional group and synthetic strategies

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