Related papers: Structure-property-function relationships in tripl…
The design of antibacterial-releasing coatings or wrapping materials with controlled drug release capability is a promising strategy to minimise risks of infection and medical device failure in vivo. Collagen fibres have been employed as…
Poly-dl-lactic acid (PDLLA) was blended with type I collagen to attempt to overcome the instantaneous gelation of electrospun collagen scaffolds in biological environments. Scaffolds based on blends of type I collagen and PDLLA were…
Colloidal gels are prime examples of functional materials exhibiting disordered, amorphous, yet meta-stable forms. They maintain stability through short-range attractive forces and their material properties are tunable by external forces.…
The mechanical properties of collagen fibrils depend on the amount and the distribution of water molecules within the fibrils. Here, we use atomic force microscopy (AFM) to study the effect of hydration on the viscoelastic properties of…
The elastic properties of granular hydrogels are commonly characterised under wet conditions, yet the influence of capillary interactions remains unclear. In practical applications, hydrogels operate in aqueous environments containing…
It is established that the mechanical properties of hydrogels control the fate of (stem) cells. However, despite its importance, a one-to-one correspondence between gels' stiffness and cell behaviour is still missing from literature. In…
Magnetic gels are composite materials, consisting of a polymer matrix and embedded magnetic particles. Those are mechanically coupled to each other, giving rise to the magnetostrictive effects as well as to a controllable overall elasticity…
The creation of hyaluronic acid (HA)-based materials as biomineralisation scaffolds for cost-effective hard tissue regenerative therapies remains a key biomedical challenge. A non-toxic and simple acellular method to generate specific…
Homogenization is a technique for the analysis of complex materials by replacing them with equivalent homogeneous materials that exhibit similar properties. By constructing a three-dimensional (3D) porous material model and employing…
Folded protein hydrogels are prime candidates as tuneable biomaterials but it is unclear to what extent their mechanical properties have mesoscopic, as opposed to molecular origins. To address this, we probe hydrogels of the muscle-derived…
Molecular dynamics simulations have been employed to study the formation of a physical (thermoreversible) gel by amphiphilic A-B-A triblock copolymers in aqueous solution. In order to mimic the structure of hydrogel-forming polypeptides…
Ferrogels consist of magnetic colloidal particles embedded in an elastic polymer matrix. As a consequence, their structural and rheological properties are governed by a competition between magnetic particle-particle interactions and…
Medical devices with matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) modulating functionality are highly desirable to restore tissue homeostasis in critical inflammation states, such as chronic wounds, rotator cuff tears and cancer. The introduction of…
Type I collagen is the main component of the extra-cellular matrix (ECM). In vitro, under a narrow window of physico-chemical conditions, type I collagen self-assembles to form complex supramolecular architectures reminiscent of those found…
One of the major limitations of nanomedicine is the scarce penetration of nanoparticles in tumoral tissues. These constrains have been tried to be solved by different strategies, such as the employ of polyethyleneglycol (PEG) to avoid the…
Bone is a multiscale heterogeneous materiel of which principal function is to support the body structure and to resist mechanical loading and fractures. Bone strength does not depend only on the quantity and quality of bone which is…
We study the micromechanics of collagen-I gel with the goal of bridging the gap between theory and experiment in the study of biopolymer networks. Three-dimensional images of fluorescently labeled collagen are obtained by confocal…
We introduce a three-dimensional model for polyelectrolyte hydrogel filaments operating in a fluid environment under an electric field. The formulation builds on a morphoelastic framework for inextensible and unshearable rods, such that the…
Colloid-polymer hydrogels are encountered in various applications, from flow batteries to drug delivery. Here, we investigate hydrogels composed of hydrophobic colloidal soot particles -- carbon black (CB) -- and carboxymethylcellulose…
In electrochemical systems, the structure of electrical double layers (EDLs) near electrode surfaces is crucial for energy conversion and storage functions. While the electrodes in real-world systems are usually heterogeneous, to date the…