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Adding Another Dimension – Arrays of 3D Bio-Responsive Materials

Final Report Summary - ADREEM (Adding Another Dimension – Arrays of 3D Bio-Responsive Materials)

The ADREEM team has been developing new polymer chemistries and new materials that have biological and biomedical applications. For example imagine:
• A polymer (we call them “smartpolymers”) that has a drug attached to it, but which only allows the drug to be released when tissue is “sick or diseased”.
• A material upon which neurons can be grown and then used for nerve regeneration/repair.
• Substrates that change colour when they detect bacteria.
• A polymer that allows the amplified delivery of a therapeutic cargo.

In another area the team are making three-dimensional scaffolds. The reason for doing this is that cells within our bodies typically exist within a three-dimensional environment (the top layer of skin cells are perhaps the major exception). Yet most biologists grow cells on a flat (2D) surface – unfortunately this 2D culturing effects the way in which cells behave and grow. As part of ADREEM we have developed an approach that allows us to make hundreds to thousands of new 3D scaffolds (of varying stiffness), while allowing the cells to find the “prefect” home or scaffold for themselves. We are using this approach to find new “hard” scaffolds for bone repair.