Stimuli-responsive polymers are termed smart materials and have extensive applications in bio-
and nanotechnology. Meanwhile, many well studied thermo-responsive polymers had some limitations regarding their biocompatibility and biodegradability for in vivo applications. Hence, fully biodegradable responsive biopolymers are greatly desirable for biomedical applications. We
developed a new synthetic strategy to prepare thermo-responsive polypeptides. The obtained
polypeptides display low critical solution temperature (LCST) behaviors in water, and the LCST
can be tuned via copolymerization of different amino acid monomers at varied molar ratio. Their
study was believed to be the first example of thermo-responsive helical polypeptide made from
ring-opening polymerization of α-amino acid N-carboxy-anhydrides (NCAs).
