The widespread application of ionic hydrogels in a number of applications like control of microfluidic flow, development of muscle-like actuators, filtration/separation and drug delivery makes it important to properly understand these materials. Understanding hydrogel properties is also important from the standpoint of their similarity to many biological tissues. Typically, gel size is sensitiv...

Phenylboronic acids are a class of compounds that bind glucose and other sugars. When polymerized into hydrogels, they provide a convenient nonenzymatic means for sensing glucose concentration, provided competing sugars are present at negligible concentrations. In this paper we provide a comprehensive study of swelling of hydrogels containing methacrylamidophenylboronic acid (MPBA), as a functi...

Smart hydrogels are promising materials for actuators and sensors, as they can respond to small changes in their environment with a large property change. Hydrogels can respond to a variety of stimuli, for example temperature, pH, metal ions, etc. In this article, the synthesis and characterization of polyampholyte hydrogels based on open chain ligands showing pH and metal ion sensitivity are d...

The swelling behavior of acrylamide (AAm)–based polyampholyte hydrogels in water and in aqueous salt (NaCl) solutions was investigated. [(Methacrylamido)propyl]trimethyl-ammonium chloride (MAPTAC) and acrylic acid (AAc) were used as the ionic comonomer in the hydrogel preparation. Three sets of hydrogels containing 70 mol% AAm and 30 mol% ionic comonomers of varying mole ratios were prepared. T...

Photocrosslinked methacrylated hyaluronic acid (MeHA) hydrogels support chondrogenesis of encapsulated human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs). However, the covalent crosslinks formed via chain polymerization in these hydrogels are hydrolytically non-degradable and restrict cartilage matrix spatial distribution and cell spreading. Meanwhile, cells are known to remodel their surrounding extracellul...

Among the natural macromolecules potentially used as the scaffold material in hydrogels, xylan has aroused great interest in many fields because of its biocompatibility, low toxicity, and biodegradability. In this work, new pH and thermoresponsive hydrogels were prepared by the cross-linking polymerization of maleic anhydride-modified xylan (MAHX) with N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAm) and acrylic ...

Yan, H. 2016. New insights into principles of scaffolds design for bone application. Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology 1459. 87 pp. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. ISBN 978-91-554-9767-5. This thesis presents deeper insights into bone applicable biomaterials’ design. Poor affinity of BMP-2 towards scaffolds required supr...

Thermosensitive polymer hydrogel particles with size varying from 480 to 620 nm were prepared through precipitation copolymerization of N-isopropylacrylamide with N,N'-methylenebisacrylamide (MBA) in water with ammonium persulfate as the initiator. Only polymer hydrogels without any coagula were obtained when MBA concentration in the monomer mixture was kept between 2.5 and 10.0 wt%; with incre...