Preparation of Soluble and Colloidal Molecularly Imprinted Polymers by Living Polymerization

The present invention describes a method for synthesis of relatively low molecular weight imprinted polymers using living polymerization, and their application in analytical chemistry, pharmacology, medicine and the food industry. Specifically the low-molecular weight polymers are synthesized by the polymerization of functional monomers in the presence of a template, such as a biological receptor, enzyme, nucleic acid, cell, virus, microorganism, tissue sample or drug using living initiator. The conditions of living polymerization ensure a relatively small size of synthesized molecules. Synthesized in this way molecules (dimers, oligomers, polymers, or their mixture) have a higher affinity to the template than the original monomers and can rebind it in vitro and/or in vivo. As a further aspect of the present invention, polymers synthesized as described above can be used as drugs in pharmacology and medicine, as receptor-specific ligands in analytical chemistry (sensors, assays), and for separations in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and food industries.