Designer materials and structures for molecular regenerative medicine

再生医学是工程学和生物医学之间有效合作的一个领域。组织修复技术需要支架来促进细胞生长，并且下一代支架需要具有改进的、更好定义的和更可预测的3D宏观结构以及介观和宏观特征。Jamie Davies教授的实验室开发了一种创新的方法来制造水凝胶，并专注于细胞组织成组织的机制，而Lynne Regan教授的实验室开发了一类新的基于蛋白质的水凝胶，使用SpyTag（ST）/SpyCatcher（SC）肽/蛋白质对来创建具有增强交联的功能性生物材料。因此，该合作项目将涉及两个实验室的设施，以开发一种方法，通过使用旋转内流层工程技术的边缘流来生产控制良好的蛋白质水凝胶，并且试验数据表明形成了精确的3D管支架。支架的介观和微观特征可以通过使用允许重组蛋白精确排列的水凝胶来指定，从而允许精确指定细胞附着位点的身份和位置。由于水凝胶在两种蛋白质组分混合后简单地形成，而不需要添加剂、温度变化或照射，因此与细胞原位凝胶化与细胞活力完全相容。该项目将利用合作实验室的专业知识和工具，优化此类水凝胶和细胞的一系列应用。

Regenerative medicine is an area in which effective collaboration between engineering and biomedicine is particularly critical. Tissue repair techniques require scaffolds to facilitate cell growth, and next-generation scaffolds need to have improved, better defined and more predictable 3D macro-structures and mesoscopic and macroscopic features. Prof. Jamie Davies's laboratory has developed an innovative method to fabricate hydrogels and focuses on the mechanisms by which cells organize into tissues, while Prof. Lynne Regan's laboratory has developed a new class of protein-based hydrogels using SpyTag (ST)/SpyCatcher (SC) peptide/protein pair to create functional biomaterials with enhanced crosslinking. Thus, this collaborative project will involve the facilities in both labs to develop a method to produce well controlled protein-based hydrogels by rimming flow using the rotational internal flow layer engineering technology and pilot data indicates the formation of precise 3D tube scaffolds. Meso- and microscopic features of scaffolds can be specified by using hydrogels that allow precise arrangement of recombinant proteins, allowing the identity and position of cell attachment sites to be precisely specified. Since the hydrogel forms simply upon mixing of the two protein components, without the need for additives, change of temperature, or irradiation, gelation with cells in situ is fully compatible with cell viability. The project will use expertise and tools in the collaborating labs to optimize such hydrogels and cells for a range of applications.