Amphiphilic copolymers were synthesized based on 2-(diethylamino)ethyl methacrylate (DEAEMA) and poly(ethylene glycol) methyl ether methacrylate (average molar mass=300 g/mol, average number of ethylene glycol units=4.5) (PEGMA). As stated, DEAEMA was chosen as the hydrophobic monomer containing amine groups which form the micelle core, while PEGMA was chosen as the hydrophilic monomer to generate a bottle-brush anti-fouling corona around the micelle core * . Figure (a) shows a schematic representation of the polymer, and how self-assembles into micelles to form nano-reactors for the generation of gold nanoparticles. Synthesis was carried out using GTP, as described in detail in Materials and Methods. PEGMA17-b-DEAEMA27 was the target composition, giving a target molar mass 10000 g mol -1 . Successful polymerisation was confirmed by H NMR (Fig 1b ) and GPC (Fig ). Experimentally-measured weight percentages of PEGMA and DEAEMA (Table ) were calculated by the integral ratio of PEGMA and DEAEMA signals in H-NMR using non-overlapping peaks (signals from the CH2 ethyl group next to N and closer to ester at 2.6 ppm and the methoxy peak at 3.35 ppm, respectively). The GPC chromatogram (Fig ) has no shoulder or monomer peak, which indicates all monomer has polymerised and that all polymer chains grow to produce the diblock copolymer. The diblock copolymer and its linear precursor are relatively monodisperse, with Ð values all lower or equal to 1.2, and the block Mn (number average molar mass) values close to those targeted (Table ). The pKa value of the copolymer was determined to be 7.2 by titration (using a 1w/w% aqueous solution of the copolymer), arising from the tertiary amine groups in the DEAEMA block.