Project description
Next-gen hydrogels for cartilage repair
As Europe’s population ages, the number of people suffering from cartilage injuries continues to grow, surpassing a million cases annually. Effective treatments remain limited, as synthetic hydrogels often struggle with biocompatibility, while natural ones can lack strength or integrate poorly with host tissues. Bacterial contamination is another challenge, making the search for better materials crucial. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the ClickBioGel project addresses this need by developing bio-based hydrogels using collagen, hyaluronic acid, and kappa-carrageenan, harnessing their combined benefits. Through click chemistry, the project ensures selective, high-yield crosslinking under mild conditions. By offering photocrosslinked, 3D-printed, and injectable hydrogels with enhanced mechanical properties, bio-adhesiveness, and antibacterial features, ClickBioGel is advancing cartilage regeneration solutions.
Objective
Cartilage injury afflicts over a million patients annually in Europe and it is a serious problem due to Europe's ageing population. Hydrogels are promising materials for cartilage tissue regeneration in case they are designed accordingly. The use of synthetic materials suffer from biocompatibility and toxicity problems while natural materials can have drawbacks such as low mechanical strength, limited types, insufficient integration with host tissues and easy contamination with bacteria due to high biocompatibility. ClickBioGel aims to fill this gap through fabrication of bio-based hydrogels for cartilage tissue regeneration using a ternary material system composed of collagen, hyaluronic acid and K-carrageenan to advantage from their synergetic effects, and the “Click” chemistry concept, particularly thiol-ene and Diels-Alder reactions, for the selective and high yield chemical crosslinking of the hydrogels under mild reaction conditions. Chitin nanofibrils will be dispersed in the hydrogel precursor for enhancing the mechanical properties as well as antibacterial and bioadhesive characteristics while RGD peptide will be attached on the hydrogels for cell-adhesiveness. The production of the hydrogels will mainly be in three categories as photocrosslinked hydrogels, 3-D printed hydrogels and light-free injectable hydrogels, which will allow the tunability according to the needs. In vitro cell viability, cytotoxicity and chondrogenesis performance of the hydrogels will be evaluated. With the support of my supervisor (Prof Sangermano), his infrastructure at Department of Applied Science and Technology, as well as the interdepartmental biomedical research centre and the multidisciplinary additive manufacturing research centre at Politecnico di Torino, the fellowship will train me on hydrogel synthesis, photocuring, 3D-printing and biological analysis and act as a pilot for my own ERC starting grant to be an independent researcher.
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. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences biological sciences microbiology bacteriology
- natural sciences biological sciences biochemistry biomolecules
You need to log in or register to use this function
We are sorry... an unexpected error occurred during execution.
You need to be authenticated. Your session might have expired.
Thank you for your feedback. You will soon receive an email to confirm the submission. If you have selected to be notified about the reporting status, you will also be contacted when the reporting status will change.
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
-
HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
MAIN PROGRAMME
See all projects funded under this programme
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
See all projects funded under this funding scheme
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01
See all projects funded under this callCoordinator
Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
10129 Torino
Italy
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.