Size controlled synthesis of ornithine‐based polypeptides by ring‐opening polymerization of α‐(amino acid)‐N‐carboxyanhydrides

Polypeptide-based drug delivery has become increasingly important in the field of nanomedicine, with N-carboxyanhydride (NCA) polymerization representing a versatile approach toward their synthesis. Organocatalytic polymerization conditions have been developed to access moderate molecular weight polypeptides with narrow chain length distributions by adding acidic additives to triethylamine catalyzed NCA polymerizations. This method produces polypeptides of predictable sizes and is operationally simple, allowing the synthesis of polypeptides with different targeted sizes for use in a variety of applications including drug delivery. Additional Supporting Information may be found in the online version of this article. Supporting Information Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.