Polymers that start degrading under acidic conditions are increasingly investigated as a pathway to trigger the release of drugs once the drug carrier reached the slightly acidic tumour environment or after the drug carrier has been taken up by cells, resulting in the localization of the polymer in the acidic endosomes and lysosomes. The advances in the design of acid-degradable polymers and drug delivery systems have been summarized and discussed in this review article. Various acid-labile groups such as acetals, orthoester, hydrazones, imines and cis-aconityl, that can undergo cleavage in slightly acidic conditions, have been employed to create polymer architectures or polymer–drug conjugates that can degrade under lysosomal and endosomal conditions, triggering the fast release of drugs or DNA.

This highlight describes recent developments in reversible addition–fragmentation transfer (RAFT) polymerization. Succinct coverage of the RAFT mechanism is supplemented by details of synthetic methodologies for making a wide range of architectures ranging from stars to combs, microgels, and blocks. In addition, RAFT reactions in different media such as emulsion and ionic liquids receive attention. Finally, a specific example of a novel material design is briefly introduced, whereas polymers prepared via RAFT are adopted for microporous/honeycomb membrane design. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 41: 365–375, 2003

Knowledge of the interactions between nanoparticles (NPs) and cell membranes is of great importance for the design of safe and efficient nanomedicines.

Synthetic carbohydrate ligands – also widely known as glycopolymers – are known to undergo numerous recognition events when interacting with their corresponding lectins. Interactions are greatly enhanced due to the multivalent character displayed by the large number of repeating carbohydrate units along the polymers (pendant glycopolymers); therefore, resulting what is called the “glycocluster effect”. Moreover, the strength and the availability of these multivalent recognitions can be tuned via the architecture of the glycopolymers. Hence, understanding the mechanistic interactions between the types of lectins (plant, animal, toxin and bacteria) with their synthetic ligands is crucial. This review focuses on the synthesis of pendant glycopolymers via various synthetic pathways (free radical polymerization, NMP, RAFT, ATRP, cyanoxyl mediated polymerization, ROP, ROMP and post-polymerization modification) and their interactions with their respectively lectins.