Natural Polymer Breakthrough: Chitosan's Secret Potential Unleashed

Researchers at the Laboratory of Biopolymer Engineering of the Federal Research Center of Biotechnology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (FRC Biotechnology RAS) are developing functional materials based on chitosan, a natural polysaccharide, for use in medicine and agriculture. The work, described in a Pravda.Ru report, focuses on chemical modification and hydrolysis of the polymer, with the aim of producing biofungicides, hemostatic agents and targeted delivery systems. The laboratory's lead researcher estimates that medical devices and agricultural products are closest to market entry, while full pharmaceutical development will take longer because of regulatory requirements. How the polymer is modified Chitosan is a naturally occurring polymer, and the central idea of the program is that its internal macromolecular parameters — molecular weight, degree of deacetylation and the distribution of functional groups — can be tuned by chemical modification and hydrolysis, rather than by relying on off-the-shelf commercial reagents. The same starting molecule can therefore be converted into materials with very different functional profiles, depending on how those parameters are adjusted. To verify the resulting structure and properties, the laboratory uses an analytical platform that includes spectroscopy, chromatography and dynamic light scattering. Dynamic light scattering is the key method for determining the molecular weight of the polymers, which in turn governs how the modified chitosan behaves in application.