An Ode to Biopolymers

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MacEwan-poem_2014

by Sarah MacEwan

Polymers are swell for delivering drugs
Small molecule, biologics they are happy to lug

Throughout your body with the greatest of ease
Delivering drug to the site of disease

Now polymers made from a synthetic route
Won’t have the same qualities day-in and day-out

The reactive site where the drug can attach
May vary in number and place with each batch

RAFT, ROMP, ATRP
Each is controlled, but to what degree?

So sometimes you’ll get what you need with some luck
And others might say that they don’t give a

Care in the world if they don’t know exactly
Where the drug is attached or the protein is actually

But I will still say it’s important to know
That the drug is right here and the protein just so

And the way to achieve this perfect precision?
Just make them under a gene’s supervision

Biopolymers born from a plasmid gene template
Are exactly the same in their sequence and weight

Monodisperse, each one the same
You can be sure they will meet their aim

Predictable in their biodistribution
So for the disease they will be your solution

They’re each time the same, no if, ands or butt
Made your first year or seventh – seventh, wait what?

Anyways, they're biocompatible to boot
The value of biopolymers you just can’t refute

 

See Extrinsically controlled intracellular drug delivery for more poetry.