Synthetic tissue can repair hearts, muscles, and vocal cords

Date:
November 30, 2021
Source:
McGill University
Summary:
Combining knowledge of chemistry, physics, biology, and engineering,
scientists from McGill University develop a biomaterial tough
enough to repair the heart, muscles, and vocal cords, representing
a major advance in regenerative medicine.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Combining knowledge of chemistry, physics, biology, and engineering,
scientists from McGill University develop a biomaterial tough enough to
repair the heart, muscles, and vocal cords, representing a major advance
in regenerative medicine.


========================================================================== "People recovering from heart damage often face a long and tricky journey.

Healing is challenging because of the constant movement tissues must
withstand as the heart beats. The same is true for vocal cords. Until
now there was no injectable material strong enough for the job," says
Guangyu Bao, a PhD candidate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering
at McGill University.

The team, led by Professor Luc Mongeau and Assistant Professor Jianyu Li, developed a new injectable hydrogel for wound repair. The hydrogel is a
type of biomaterial that provides room for cells to live and grow. Once injected into the body, the biomaterial forms a stable, porous structure allowing live cells to grow or pass through to repair the injured organs.

"The results are promising, and we hope that one day the new hydrogel
will be used as an implant to restore the voice of people with damaged
vocal cords, for example laryngeal cancer survivors," says Guangyu Bao.

Putting it to the test The scientists tested the durability of their
hydrogel in a machine they developed to simulate the extreme biomechanics
of human vocal cords. Vibrating at 120 times a second for over 6 million cycles, the new biomaterial remained intact while other standard hydrogels fractured into pieces, unable to deal with the stress of the load.

"We were incredibly excited to see it worked perfectly in our test. Before
our work, no injectable hydrogels possessed both high porosity and
toughness at the same time. To solve this issue, we introduced a
pore-forming polymer to our formula," says Guangyu Bao.

The innovation also opens new avenues for other applications like drug delivery, tissue engineering, and the creation of model tissues for
drug screening, the scientists say. The team is even looking to use the hydrogel technology to create lungs to test COVID-19 drugs.

"Our work highlights the synergy of materials science, mechanical
engineering and bioengineering in creating novel biomaterials with unprecedented performance. We are looking forward to translating them
into the clinic," said Professor Jianyu Li, who holds the Canada Research
Chair in Biomaterials and Musculoskeletal Health.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by McGill_University. Note: Content
may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Sareh Taheri, Guangyu Bao, Zixin He, Sepideh Mohammadi, Hossein
Ravanbakhsh, Larry Lessard, Jianyu Li, Luc Mongeau. Injectable,
Pore‐Forming, Perfusable Double‐Network Hydrogels
Resilient to Extreme Biomechanical Stimulations. Advanced Science,
2021; 2102627 DOI: 10.1002/advs.202102627 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211130150456.htm

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