Molecular Biology Commons^™

Enabling Method To Design Versatile Biomaterial Systems From Colloidal Building Blocks, Shalini Saxena, L. Andrew Lyon

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Development of materials with fine spatial control over topographical, mechanical, or chemical features has been investigated for a variety of applications. Here we present a method to fabricate an array of polyelectrolyte constructs including two-dimensionally and three-dimensionally patterned assemblies using both compressible and incompressible colloidal building blocks. This method eliminates prior constraints associated with specific chemistries, and can be used to develop modular, multi-component, patterned assemblies. In particular, development of constructs were investigated using microgels, which are colloidally stable hydrogel microparticles, polystyrene (PS) beads, and PS-microgel core-shell building blocks in conjunction with the polycation poly(ethyleneimine) (PEI). The topography, mechanical properties, …