Highly effective surfactants with low hemolytic activity

Abstract

Communication: Fluorochemicals show potential as highly surface‐active but non‐hemolyzing surfactants , an important combination of properties for biomedical applications such as blood substitutes and contrast agents. Hydrocarbon‐based surfactants suffer from the disadvantage that as the length of the hydrocarbon chain (and therefore surface activity) increases, cell‐destruction (hemolysis) also increases. The fluorinated srufactants, however, exhibit the opposite effect, an increase in chain length and surface activity leading to reduced hemolysis.