OBJECTIVES: (1) The reflectance fluorescence technique developed for the continuous monitoring of model reactions of reagents attached to crosslinked gels will be applied to the coupling of gel-bound fluorescing amino acid residues with quenching carboxylic acids. (2) Gel electrophoresis will be investigated to improve our understanding of the effect of the nature of the gel network and the length of the crosslinks on the mobility of flexible chains of varying length. In addition, an attempt will be made to add specificity to the method by entrapping in the gel network polymers with side chains which have a specific affinity for a given protein. (3) We are hoping to start an investigation of the kinetics of heterogeneous reactions of reagents in aqueous solution with reactive groups attached to the surface of polystyrene latex particles. This is of interest in view of the use of polystyrene latex in serological tests.