Cell delivery to the infarcted heart has emerged as a promising therapy, but is limited by very low acute retention and engraftment of cells. The objective of this study was to compare a panel of biomaterials to evaluate if acute retention can be improved with a biomaterial carrier. Cells were quantified post-implantation in a rat myocardial infarct model in five groups (n = 7-8); saline inject...

Mechanical properties of the extracellular matrix have a profound effect on the behavior of anchorage-dependent cells. However, the mechanisms that define the effects of matrix stiffness on cell behavior remains unclear. Therefore, the development and fabrication of synthetic matrices with well-defined stiffness is invaluable for studying the interactions of cells with their biophysical microen...

The bound water fraction (XBW) of a newlydeveloped pH-sensitive, biodegradable chitosan-polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) hydrogel crosslinked with glutaraldehyde (GA) was investigated as a function of the chitosan/PVA molar ratio, GA concentration (CGA), and ionization state. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) was used to determine the XBW of the initial hydrogel, and of the hydrogel equilibrated i...

Chitosan hydrogels stand out for being an adhesive matrix, which presents biocompatibility, antibacterial and osteogenic properties, biodegradability, non-toxicity, capable of retaining, releasing, distributing therapeutic agents (drugs) at the application site. Therefore, new strategies in field orthopedics have focused, above all, on limiting initial preoperative postoperative microbial adhes...

Developing low-cost and high-performance biosorbent for water purification continues drawing more attention. In this study, cellulose-chitosan composite hydrogels were fabricated via a co-dissolution regeneration process using molten salt hydrate (a 60 wt% aqueous solution of LiBr) as solvent. The addition chitosan not only introduced functionality metal adsorption but also increased the specif...