Jon Collett (PhD student 2002-2005)
Development of Thermoresponsive Hydrogels for Cell Expansion
Bioresorbable polymer scaffolds are frequently described in studies of cartilage tissue engineering. However, to date there has been no single biomaterial or design universally accepted for this purpose. Existing scaffolds suffer from uncontrolled degradation, and it remains difficult to recover tissues from agarose and alginate gels. A biocompatible thermoresponsive polymer would be desirable for culturing chondrocytes, and would have applications in the recovery of intact chondrocytes with their pericellular matrix for further tissue engineering applications. The aim of this study was therefore to develop and investigate a novel, thermoresponsive 3D scaffold based on Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (pNIPAAm). This macromonomer was used in the synthesis of cross-linked graft copolymer networks with glycerol methacrylate (GMA).
Supervisor(s): Dr Steve Rimmer (Department of Chemistry) and Prof Paul Hatton