Polypeptides (

α

-amino acid polymers)

as one of the most promising biomedical polymers

have excellent biocompatibility

bioactivities and biodegradability. Primary amine-initiated NCA polymerization is the most widely used method to prepare polypeptides. However

this polymerization is super sensitive to moisture

with slow reaction rate and side reactions

and difficult to obtain polypeptides with high molecular weight. Recently

Prof. Liu

et al

. at East China University of Science and Technology utilized Lithium Hexamethyldisilazide (LiHMDS) as the catalyst to initiate ring opening polymerization of NCA. This is the first demonstration of moisture insensitive NCA polymerization under atmosphere condition. This NCA polymerization can be completed within a few minutes to a few hours and successfully produces poly-BLG with number average molecular weight over 2.8 × 10

5

g/mol. This research opens the era for easy and efficient synthesis of polypeptides and builds the foundation for large-scale application of polypeptides as biomedical materials.