Designer materials and structures for molecular regenerative medicine

再生医学是一个工程学和生物医学之间的有效合作尤为关键的领域。组织修复技术需要支架来促进细胞生长，下一代支架需要有改进的、更好定义和更可预测的三维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制造水凝胶的创新方法，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种新型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性的功能生物材料。因此，这一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和中试数据显示形成精确的3D管状支架，通过边缘流动生产控制良好的蛋白质水凝胶。支架的介观和微观特征可以通过使用允许精确排列重组蛋白质的水凝胶来指定，从而允许精确地指定细胞附着位置的身份和位置。由于水凝胶仅由两种蛋白质组分混合而成，不需要添加剂、温度变化或辐射，因此与细胞的原位凝胶化与细胞活力完全兼容。该项目将利用合作实验室中的专业知识和工具来优化这种水凝胶和细胞，使其适用于一系列应用。

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.