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Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons™
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Full-Text Articles in Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering
Promoting Extracellular Matrix Crosslinking In Synthetic Hydrogels, Marcos M. Manganare
Promoting Extracellular Matrix Crosslinking In Synthetic Hydrogels, Marcos M. Manganare
Masters Theses
The extracellular matrix (ECM) provides mechanical and biochemical support to tissues and cells. It is crucial for cell attachment, differentiation, and migration, as well as for ailment-associated processes such as angiogenesis, metastases and cancer development. An approach to study these phenomena is through emulation of the ECM by synthetic gels constructed of natural polymers, such as collagen and fibronectin, or simple but tunable materials such as poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) crosslinked with short peptide sequences susceptible to digestion by metalloproteases and cell-binding domains. Our lab uses PEG gels to study cell behavior in three dimensions (3D). Although this system fosters cell …
Biodegradable Nano-Hybrid Polymer Composite Networks For Regulating Cellular Behavior, Charles Henley Sprague
Biodegradable Nano-Hybrid Polymer Composite Networks For Regulating Cellular Behavior, Charles Henley Sprague
Masters Theses
Photo-crosslinkable polymeric biomaterials have emerged in the field of biomedical research to promote tissue regeneration. For example, scaffolds that can be crosslinked and hardened in situ have been known to make suitable implant alternatives. Since injectable and photo-crosslinkable biomaterials offer the advantage of being minimally invasive, they have emerged to compete with autografts, a current highly invasive method to repair diseased tissue. A series of novel photo-crosslinkable, injectable, and biodegradable nano-hybrid polymers consisting of poly(ε-caprolactone fumarate) (PCLF) and polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) has been synthesized in our laboratory via polycondensation. To engineer the material properties of the nano-hybrid networks, varied …