A series of OEGylated poly(gamma-benzyl-L-glutamate) with different oligo-ethylene-glycol side-chain length, molecular weight (MW = 8.4 x 10(3) to 13.5 x 10(4)) and narrow molecular weight distribution (PDI = 1.12-1.19) can be readily prepared from triethylamine initiated ring-opening polymerization of OEGylated gamma-benzyl-L-glutamic acid based N-carboxyanhydride. FTIR analysis revealed that the polymers adopted alpha-helical conformation in the solid-state. While they showed poor solubility in water, they exhibited a reversible upper critical solution temperature (UCST)-type phase behavior in various alcoholic organic solvents (i.e., methanol, ethanol, 1-propanol, 1-butanol, 1-pentanol, and isopropanol). Variable-temperature UV-vis analysis revealed that the UCST-type transition temperatures (T(pt)s) of the resulting polymers were highly dependent on the type of solvent, polymer concentration, side-and main-chain length. (C) 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.