Patent ID: 7858337

Claim:
A process for the manufacture of a composite material, comprising the steps of: (a) providing a hydrophobic organic bulk material; (b) applying a hydrophilic surface coating on the hydrophobic organic bulk material by first non-covalently attaching to the surface of the bulk material a water-soluble peptide comprising a hydrophobic moiety, wherein the water-soluble peptide is of the formula A-C(O)-[NH-(peptide)-C(O)]-X 1 -R 3 (3), wherein A-C(O) is a radical selected from the group consisting of the radical of a fatty acid, the radical of an aromatic carboxylic acid and the radical of an araliphatic carboxylic acid, [NH-(peptide)-C(O)] is the radical of a polypeptide which is a statistical copolymer of lysine and more than one other amino acids selected from the group consisting of alanine, phenylalanine, serine, tyrosine and tryptophan, and wherein the molecular weight range M r of the polypeptide is from 400 to 10000 daltons, X 1 —R 3 is either OH and part of the terminal peptide carboxy group, or X 1 is O or NR 4 wherein R 4 is hydrogen or C 1 —C 2 -alkyl, and R 3 is a hydrophilic group; and (c) then chemically or enzymatically crosslinking said water-soluble peptide.