Title: bioactivity
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - bioactivity
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.13873
Status: current

Definition
Capability of a substance, such as a drug or a vaccine, to provoke a response from a living matter.

Notes
1) There is no polymer (solid or in solution) that is inert in contact with a living system, because of adsorption and/or physical-chemical interactions with life elements (biopolymers, cells, and tissues).
2) Stealth is often used to reflect the absence of recognition by defense proteins of the complement, and more generally opsonins that serve as binding enhancers for the process of phagocytosis.

Related Term
- Stealth: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/13945

Source
- PAC, 2012, 84, 377. 'Terminology for biorelated polymers and applications (IUPAC Recommendations 2012)' on page 380 (https://doi.org/10.1351/PAC-REC-10-12-04)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13873/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13873/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13873/xml

Citation: Citation: 'bioactivity' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.13873
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Accessed: 2026-06-04T19:52:44+00:00