I. Delivery templates of patterned paper for the fabrication of planar materials and

This thesis comprises two distinct halves. The first half describes a line of investigation that explores the use of templates of patterned paper to control the delivery of a solution of reagents to a second medium, in two dimensions. Chapter 1 is a minireview of the concept and various applications; it is intended to serve as an introduction. Chapter 2 describes the construction of delivery templates for the fabrication of shaped films of ionotropic hydrogels. Chapter 3 describes a modification of the technique to fabricate patterned heterogeneous films (gel-in-gel structures) of the same materials. Chapter 4 describes the use of delivery templates to pattern solids within paper by depositing them as precipitates of chemical reactions. The second half of the thesis explores treatment of the thiol-thioester exchange reaction as a reversible binding event that functions in water under biologically relevant conditions. Chapter 5 provides a brief introduction to thioesters and the thiol-thioester exchange reaction in the form of a review article. Chapter 6 explores the kinetics of the reaction versus the competing reaction of hydrolysis. Chapter 7 describes the fabrication of thioester-functionalized microspheres and their use as a solid support for anchoring amines. Chapter 8 explores reversible binding of thiol-tagged molecules to thioester-functionalized microspheres.