Project description
Improved nanocomposite hydrogels for bone regeneration
The limitations of self-healing hydrogels designed for tissue and organ regeneration can be overcome by ensuring their strength and capability to guide tissue regeneration without compromising their self-healing behaviour. The EU-funded Nano4Bone project employs metal-ligand coordination bonds to engineer interactions between nanoparticles and polymers, creating self-healing hydrogels that are both stable and labile, thus improving their mechanical properties. The inclusion of nanoparticles increases local crosslinking densities, enhancing mechanical strength without compromising self-healing capabilities. Additionally, these nanoparticles can serve as bioactive units by incorporating therapeutic ions to promote tissue-healing behaviour. The metal-ligand bond offers control over the gradual release of bioactive nanoparticles over time. The project aims to optimise these materials for the treatment and regeneration of bone tissue in osteosarcoma.
Objective
Self-healing hydrogels are investigated as promising biomaterials in tissue and organ regeneration applications, offering a powerful alternative for scarce donor tissue. However, these hydrogels are often insufficiently tough, which is a significant limitation in their clinical use. Another drawback is that there are limited solutions on how to instruct cells for tissue healing. Thus, one key challenge is to develop self-healing hydrogels that are mechanically strong and can guide tissue regeneration. However, current methods to improve the mechanical properties of hydrogels negatively impact self-healing behavior.
In Nano4Bone, I aim to provide a novel solution to this challenge by engineering nanoparticle polymer interactions using metal-ligand coordination bonds, which, uniquely, are both stable and labile; ideal properties for creating spontaneous self-healing hydrogels. The nanoparticles act as dynamic crosslinkers to increase local crosslinking densities, thus dramatically improving the mechanical properties without affecting the self-healing behavior. Importantly, the nanoparticles can also act as bioactive units through smart incorporation of therapeutic ions to instruct tissue-healing behavior. The metal ligand bond can be tuned for temporally controlled release of bioactive nanoparticles, a novel approach which allows kinetic control over bioactive signals. To prove their clinical utility, I will optimize the materials to treat and regenerate bone tissue in osteosarcoma (OS), for which new treatment options are urgently needed.
Nano4Bone proposes an innovative method to drastically improve the mechanical properties of hydrogels without negatively impacting their self-healing abilities. The impact of the project will be large by addressing key challenges in the field, offering a new treatment for OS, and a wide application area of the new materials in regenerative medicine and other biomedical fields.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- natural scienceschemical sciencespolymer sciences
- engineering and technologynanotechnologynano-materials
- engineering and technologyindustrial biotechnologybiomaterials
- engineering and technologymaterials engineeringnanocomposites
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Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsHost institution
6200 MD Maastricht
Netherlands