Patent ID: 7678882

Claim:
A polyamino acid comprising aspartic units, glutamic units, or both aspartic and glutamic units; wherein at least one aspartic unit or at least one glutamic unit is bonded to a graft by a spacer comprising at least two amide linkages; wherein each graft comprises at least one hydrophobic unit; and wherein the polyamino acid is characterized by general formula (I) below: in which R 1 is H, a linear C2 to C10 acyl group or branched C3 to C10 acyl group, or a pyroglutamate; R 2 is H, a linear C2 to C10 alkyl or branched C3 to C10 alkyl, benzyl or a terminal amino acid unit; R 3 is H, a metal, an organic cation, or a cationic polyamino acid; the n groups B independently of one another are each a monovalent radical of the following formula: wherein: R 4 independently is a group selected from the list given for R 3 , a linear C1 to C6 alkyl, a branched C3 to C8 alkyl, or a benzyl; and R 5 independently is a group selected from acid derivatives derived from (i) saturated or unsaturated, linear C2 to C24 alkyls or branched C4 to C24 alkyls, or (ii) C7 to C24 aryls, aralkyls or alkylaryls; A independently is —CH 2 — (aspartic unit) or —CH 2 —CH 2 — (glutamic unit); n/(n+m) is defined as the molar grafting rate and varies from 0.5 to 100 mol %; n+m varies from 3 to 1000 and 1 is equal to 1 or 2.