Functionally Diverse Nylon-3 Copolymers from Readily Accessible β-Lactams

A new family of β-lactams is described that enables anionic ring-opening polymerization (AROP) to prepare nylon-3 materials bearing diverse appended functionality, including carboxylic acid, thiol, hydroxyl and secondary amine groups. Nylon-3 copolymers generated with the new β-lactams are shown to display distinctive self-assembly behavior and biological properties.