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Hydrogels are crosslinked polymer networks with high water content, widely employed in biomedical applications such as drug delivery, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine. Injectable, depot-forming hydrogels enable sustained…
Self-healing polymers crosslinked by solely reversible bonds are intrinsically weaker than common covalently crosslinked networks. Introducing covalent crosslinks into a reversible network would improve mechanical strength. It is…
DNA nanostar (DNAns) hydrogels are promising materials for in vivo applications, including tissue regeneration and drug and antibody delivery. However, a systematic and quantitative understanding of the design principles controlling their…
Double network hydrogels show remarkable mechanical performance, combining high strength and fracture toughness with sufficient stiffness to bear load, despite containing only a low density of cross-linked polymer molecules in water. We…
Hydrogels are soft materials engineered to suit a multitude of applications that exploit their tunable mechanochemical properties. Dynamic hydrogels employing noncovalent, physically crosslinked networks dominated by either enthalpic or…
Adding dynamic bonds in polymer networks enables reprocessing and recycling; however the full impact of reversible bonds on dynamic network mechanics remains unclear. We build model dynamic networks and observe substantial deviations from…
Three-dimensional DNA networks, composed of tri- or higher valent nanostars with sticky, single-stranded DNA overhangs, have been previously studied in the context of designing thermally responsive, viscoelastic hydrogels. In this work, we…
Hydrogels have had a profound impact in the fields of tissue engineering, drug delivery, and materials science as a whole. Due to the network architecture of these materials, imbibement with water often results in uniform swelling and…
Thermoresponsive hydrogels have been studied intensively for creating smart drug carriers and controlled drug delivery. Understanding the drug release kinetics and corresponding transport mechanisms of nanoparticles (NPs) in a…
The influence of structural constraints on the relaxation dynamics of three polyurea networks with varying degree of crosslinking, has been studied by means of a thorough analysis of broadband dielectric spectroscopy measurements. Two…
The resistance to fracture of reversible biopolymer hydrogels is an important control factor of the cutting/slicing and eating characteristics of food gels. It is also critical for their utilization in tissue engineering, for which…
Reversible crosslinkers can enable several desirable mechanical properties, such as improved toughness and self-healing, when incorporated in polymer networks for bioengineering and structural applications. In this work, we performed…
Reversible crosslinking is a design paradigm for polymeric materials, wherein they are microscopically reinforced with chemical species that form transient crosslinks between the polymer chains. Besides the potential for self-healing,…
Understanding the relationship between the microscopic structure and topology of a material and its macroscopic properties is a fundamental challenge across a wide range of systems. Here, we investigate the viscoelasticity of DNA nanostar…
Polymer gels are comprised of a three-dimensional, cross-linked network that can typically withstand the mechanical deformation associated with both swelling and de-swelling. Thus, gels can be designed with smart behaviors that require both…
The binding of proteins onto DNA contributes to the shaping and packaging of genome as well as to the expression of specific genetic messages. With a view to understanding the interplay between the presence of proteins and the deformation…
We measure the rheology of transient hydrogels comprised of a single type of DNA nanostar that makes both strong and weak bonds. These gels exhibit power-law frequency-dependence of their storage and loss moduli, with scaling exponents that…
Stimulus-responsive DNA-hydrogels with swelling capabilities are a promising class of materials for biomedical applications such as drug delivery and biosensing. However, translation of these systems to microscale applications requires…
Cellular energy production depends on electron transfer (ET) between proteins. In this theoretical study, we investigate the impact of structural and conformational variations on the electronic coupling between the redox proteins…
Biological systems achieve adaptive mechanical responses through reaction-diffusion processes that couple chemical wave propagation to structural transitions. Although synthetic hydrogels with enzymatic reactions offer a platform for…