Project R-10595

Printable and injectable hydrogels with enhanced mechanical properties for applications in tissue engineering (Research)

Synthetic hydrogels are extremely useful in a wide variety of different biomedical applications. These range from contact lenses, to drug delivery devices, to mimics of natural tissues. This usefulness derives from the molecular makeup being comparable with many living tissues. Hydrogels are composed of a polymeric scaffold that is swollen with large amounts of water (> 80 %), which is similar to naturally occurring tissues and cartilage. Synthetic hydrogels hold great promise in a diverse range of areas owing to the vast flexibility afforded by state-of-the-art synthetic protocols and immense number of available building blocks. However, a major challenge remains in the fact that hydrogels with physical strength and resilience are difficult to match with natural tissues. This arises from a gap in the understanding of structure-property relationships that must be filled in synthetically complex formulations. While several current approaches have been demonstrated to achieve hydrogels with impressive strength, the next stage in development comes in the form of injectable, and 3D printable formulations. This requires that the underlying structure that provides mechanical strength is only adopted upon an external trigger. Therefore, the chemical pathways toward the network structure must be meticulously controlled. This project aims to establish such a process via molecular design and construction of structure-property relationships.

01 January 2020 - 31 December 2023