Related papers: Biocompatible Microscale DNA Hydrogels with Progra…
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…
DNA self-assembly is a well-understood nanotechnology to obtain extremely ordered structures from the nanometer to up to the hundred of microns scale. By contrast, DNA hydrogels rely on the disordered assembly of DNA building blocks to…
A key objective in DNA-based material science is understanding and precisely controlling the mechanical properties of DNA hydrogels. We perform microrheology measurements using diffusing-wave spectroscopy (DWS) to investigate the…
Biological hydrogels have been increasingly sought after as e.g. wound dressings or scaffolds for regenerative medicine, due to their inherent biofunctionality in biological environments. Especially in moist wound healing, the ideal…
With the increasing demand for personalized health monitoring, wearable sensors have gained attention in medical diagnostics and physiological tracking. Hydrogels, known for their mechanical properties and similarity to biological tissues,…
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…
Programmable materials are desirable for a variety of functional applications that range from biomedical devices, actuators and soft robots to adaptive surfaces and deployable structures. However, current smart materials are often designed…
In living systems, DNA undergoes continuous and rhythmic mechanical remodeling through condensation, looping, and disentangling to regulate gene expression, segregate chromosomes, and guide morphogenesis. Here, we demonstrate a purely…
The rapid worldwide spread of severe viral infections, often involving novel modifications of viruses, poses major challenges to our health care systems. This means that tools that can efficiently and specifically diagnose viruses are much…
In analogy with classic rigidity problems of networks and frames, the elastic properties of hydrogels made of DNA nanostars (DNAns) are expected to strongly depend on the precise geometry of their building blocks. However, it is currently…
Mesoscale molecular assemblies on the cell surface, such as cilia and filopodia, integrate information, control transport and amplify signals. Synthetic devices mimicking these structures could sensitively monitor these cellular functions…
Molecular electronics and other technologies whose components comprise individual molecules have been pursued for half a century because the molecular scale represents the limit of miniaturisation of objects whose structure is tuneable for…
The design of hydrogels that combine mechanical robustness with dynamic reconfigurability remains a fundamental challenge, as increasing crosslink dissociation rates compromise network integrity. This limitation is addressed through the…
We engineered a microfluidic platform to study the effects of bioactive glass nanoparticles (BGNs) on cell viability under static culture. We incorporated different concentrations of BGNs (1%, 2%, and 3% w/v) in collagen hydrogel (with a…
Hydrogels are widespread soft materials, which can serve a wide range of applications. The control over the viscoelastic properties of the gel is of paramount importance. Ongoing environmental issues have raised the consumer's concern…
Engineering simple, artificial models of living cells allows synthetic biologists to study cellular functions under well-controlled conditions. Reconstituting multicellular behaviors with synthetic cell-mimics is still a challenge because…
DNA nanotechnology uses predictable interactions of nucleic acids to precisely engineer complex nanostructures. Characterizing these self-assembled structures at the single-structure level is crucial for validating their design and…
Fibre-reinforced hydrogels are promising materials for biomedical applications due to their strength, toughness, and tunability. However, it remains unclear how to design fibre-reinforced hydrogels for use in specific applications due to…
Hydrogel adhesion that can be easily modulated in magnitude, space, and time is desirable in many emerging applications ranging from tissue engineering, and soft robotics, to wearable devices. In synthetic materials, these complex adhesion…
Microscale hydrogels comprised of macromolecular networks have increasingly been used for applications involving cell encapsulation, tissue engineering and for the storage and release of active cargo molecules. However, the majority of such…