Theses and Dissertations

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Engineering nanostructured polysaccharide-based polyelectrolyte complexes
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2009) Boddohi, Soheil, author; Kipper, Matt J., advisor
The overall goal of this dissertation is to demonstrate how the structure and composition of polysaccharide-based materials might be tuned at the nanometer length scale. Nanostructured biomaterials are promising candidates for biomedical engineering applications. Among all biomaterials, polysaccharides have shown great potential because of their many biochemical functions and their complex nanoscale structure in biological contexts. The nanoscale structure of polysaccharides is an important property that controls their biochemical and biological functions, in a variety of tissues. Therefore, in this dissertation, the nanoscale assembly of polysaccharides-based polyelectrolytes using polyelectrolyte multilayers (PEMs), polyelectrolyte complex nanoparticles (PCNs), and combinations of these two nanostructures was investigated. These new nanostructured surface coatings are being further developed by the Kipper research group as means of stabilizing and delivering therapeutic proteins, and as bioactive surface coatings for stem cell engineering. Thus the ability to tune their structure and composition is an important contribution of the current work.