Bioactive Scaffolds with Elastomeric Properties for the Engineering of Mechanically Active Tissues

该奖项由特拉华州大学材料研究部生物材料项目授予，旨在开发具有强大机械性能和明确生物活性的合成支架材料，用于机械活性组织的工程化。研究人员将使用化学改性的聚（ε-己内酯）作为基础材料和用于生物功能化目的的肽和聚（乙二醇）的多嵌段交替共聚物来实现这一目标。新型静电纺丝方案将被开发用于制造纤维弹性支架，其促进干细胞的浸润和附着，并同时介导其谱系特异性分化。所提出的混合系统克服了现有支架材料的主要局限性，有利于机械活性组织的成功工程。拟议的研究计划与大学建立一个新的生物医学工程系的努力很好地结合在一起，为特拉华州大学的本科生和研究生提供了一个肥沃的生物材料培训基地。它还将使研究人员与纽瓦克创造性学习中心的教师合作，推进科学教育和实验学习。组织工程是一个快速发展的领域，旨在创造人造组织或器官来取代受损或患病的组织或器官。在健康组织中，细胞存在于三维基质中，提供适当的机械支持和发育指导。为了创造人工替代组织，必须重建细胞最初生活的环境。人造支架必须是高度多孔的，显示重要的生物信号，并且能够承受重复的机械变形而不分解。这项研究的目的是开发这样的材料，可以用来诱导细胞生长，相互交流，并产生自己的矩阵与正确的组成，结构和功能。这将通过将具有所需机械性能的基础材料与含有合成聚合物和天然肽的重复片段的工程化蛋白质样大分子相结合来实现，通过新型静电纺丝工艺来创建具有纳米长度尺度的纤维的基质。这项工作将使创造复杂的生物材料，以改善人类健康，从而证明公众的支持。该奖项的推广和教育工作将有助于保持美国的全球竞争力。该奖项的努力将包括在特拉华州大学建立一个生物医学工程系，培训本科生和研究生，指导代表性不足的少数民族学生，并为当地小学开发学习工具。

This award by the Biomaterials Program in the Division of Materials Research to the University of Delaware aims to develop synthetic scaffolding materials with robust mechanical properties and defined biological activities for use in the engineering of mechanically active tissues. The investigators will accomplish this goal using chemically modified poly (epsilon-caprolactone) as the base material and multiblock alternating copolymers of peptides and poly(ethylene glycol) for bio-functionalization purposes. Novel electrospinning protocols will be developed for the fabrication of fibrous, elastomeric scaffolds that facilitate the infiltration and attachment of stem cells, and at the same time mediate their lineage-specific differentiation. The proposed hybrid systems overcome the major limitations of existing scaffolding materials and are conducive to the successful engineering of mechanically active tissues. The proposed research program integrates well with the University's effort to establish a new biomedical engineering department, providing a fertile biomaterials training ground for undergraduate and graduate students at Univ. of Delaware. It will also allow the investigators work with teachers at the Newark Center for Creative Learning to advance science education and experimental learning.Tissue engineering is a fast-growing field that aims to create artificial tissues or organs to replace damaged or diseased ones. In healthy tissue, cells reside in a three-dimensional matrix that provides proper mechanical support and developmental guidance. To create artificial replacement tissues, one must recreate the environment in which the cells originally live. The artificial scaffolds must be highly porous, display important biological signals and be able to sustain repetitive mechanical deformation without breaking down. The purpose of this research is to develop such materials that can be used to coax cells to grow, communicate with each other and to produce their own matrices with the correct composition, structure and function. This will be accomplished by combining a base material with the desired mechanical properties with an engineered, protein-like macromolecule that contains repetitive segments of synthetic polymers and natural peptides, through a novel electrospinning process to create matrices with fibers at the nanometer length scale. This work will enable the creation of sophisticated biomaterials to improve human health, thus justifying the public support. The outreach and education efforts with this award will help maintain the global competitiveness of United States. Efforts with this award will include the establishment of a biomedical engineering department at Univ. of Delaware, the training of undergraduate and graduate students, the mentoring of underrepresented minority students and the development of learning tools for a local elementary school.