Scheme 1.
Facile, One, or Three Step Syntheses of Starting Materials for Copper-Free Click Chemistry Cross-Linked Photodegradable Hydrogels. aa8-NBA is synthesized through coupling commmericially available Fmoc-protected photolabile group to 8-arm 40 kDa PEG-amine, deprotecting the Fmoc group with piperidine, and coupling azido butanoic acid. 4-DBCO is synthesized by simply coupling DBCO-acid to 4-arm 20 kDa PEG-amine.