Manan Suraiya

Master student

Multifunctional skin dressing based on recombinant collagen: electrospinning and characterization

 

Supervisors: Meng Li, Prof. Aldo R. Boccaccini

With the advent of tissue engineering in the past decades, an increasing focus has been directed towards skin tissue research, particularly wound healing. Burns, cuts and other forms of severe skin trauma which can otherwise impact the aesthetics and functioning of the skin in the patient, could be treated much more effectively by patches that mimic the existing skin properties. A popular candidate for this method is recombinant collagen [1]. Derived from synthetic sources, this material does not carry the immunogenic and allergic risks of animal-derived collagens, while also providing several beneficial functions such as trans-dermal and dermal absorption and scalability. It is also biocompatible, thus allowing for a good scaffold for skin tissue engineering. However, in order to effectively utilize this material for wound healing, meshes made up of fibres in the nanoscale must be produced. These fibres can be produced via electrospinning, which produces meshes that are highly flexible, cheap, porous, and mimic the extracellular matrix. This process ensures that the collagen scaffolds synthesized will aid cell adhesion, and tissue regeneration along with essential transport phenomena. Collagen has proven to be a challenge to electrospin as it is highly soluble, and collagen fibers often present insufficient resistance in water to withstand dissolution and have poor mechanical firmness to form a dressing for wound covering [3]. In this thesis, we sought to prepare fibers that have excellent biocompatibility, low immunogenicity, low toxicity, and high biodegradability. The project is carried out in collaboration with Prof. Kai Zheng (Nanjing Medical University, China).

References

[1] Yang, C., Hillas, P. J., Baez, J. A., Nokelainen, M., Balan, J., Tang, J., Spiro, R., & Polarek, J. W. (2004). The Application of Recombinant Human Collagen in Tissue Engineering. BioDrugs, 18(2), 103–119.

[2] Deng, A., Yang, Y., Du, S., & Yang, S. (2018). Electrospinning of in situ crosslinked recombinant human collagen peptide/chitosan nanofibers for wound healing. Biomaterials Science, 6(8), 2197–2208.

[3] Huang J, Lei X, Huang Z, et al. Bioprinted gelatin-recombinant type III collagen hydrogel promotes wound healing[J]. International Journal of Bioprinting, 2022, 8(2).