Book title: Biomedical Applications of Hydrogels Handbook
Editors: Park K, Okano T
Publisher: Springer New York
ISBN: 978-1-4419-5919-5
Abstract: Functional nanogels have been designed by the self-assembly of various associating polymers. In particular, cholesterol-bearing polysaccharides form physically crosslinked nanogels by self-assembly in water. The nanogels trap proteins mainly by hydrophobic interaction and show chaperon-like activity. They are useful as polymeric nanocarriers especially in protein delivery. Macrogels with well-defined nanostructures were obtained by self-assembly and chemical crosslinking of these nanogels as building blocks