Title:

Tunable Biocomposite Dextran-ELP and Dextran-RLP Hydrogels as Smart Biomaterials​

Smart biomaterials are biologically compatible constructs that can dynamically respond to stimuli in their environment. One class of smart biomaterial is thermoresponsive polymers that react to changes in environmental temperature which cause a structural alteration to the material. One such material dextran methacrylate(DexMa), a carbohydrate-based biopolymer, exhibits temperature responsive behavior through a property known as lower critical solution temperature(LCST) which causes it to separate from a bulk solution once the temperature reaches a certain point. Additionally, Dextran methacrylate possesses highly desirable mechanical properties, making it an ideal biomaterial. Polypeptides can also exhibit temperature dependent phase behavior such as elastin-like polypeptide derived from human tropoelastin and resilin-like polypeptide derived from resilin in insect joints which can be engineered to possess a LCST property. Here multiple composite materials comprised of either DexMa-ELP or DexMa-RLP are proposed as novel smart biomaterials for use in tissue engineering and drug delivery.

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