Unai Moro Olea

Visiting student (Mondragón University, Spain)

Optimizing oxidized hyaluronic acid for 3D bioprinting

Supervisors: Markus Lorke and Prof. Aldo R. Boccaccini

Medicine is constantly evolving. When it comes to brain diseases treatment, creating materials which replicate brain tissue physical properties is needed, so that implants are not rejected and the immune response is minimized (Axpe et al., 2020). For this purpose, hydrogels are suitable candidates. Among them, hyaluronic acid (HA)-based hydrogels suit the best for this application, due to their native presence in the human extracellular matrix (ECM) (Kuth et al., 2022). Moreover, factors such as modification via oxidation, combination with other polymers or the crosslinking strategy influence the printability and mechanical properties (Malda et al., 2013). The aim of this work is to investigate different polymer concentrations and oxidation degrees of HA on printing properties to obtain 3D structures with mechanical properties that mimic the ECM. The project is carried out in the frame of the Collaborative Research Center CRC 1540 Exploring Brain Mechanics.

Axpe, E., Orive, G., Franze, K., & Appel, E. A. (2020). Towards brain-tissue-like biomaterials. Nature Communications, 11(1), 3423. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-17245-x

Kuth, S., Karakaya, E., Reiter, N., Schmidt, L., Paulsen, F., Teßmar, J., Budday, S., & Boccaccini, A. R. (2022). Oxidized Hyaluronic Acid-Gelatin-Based Hydrogels for Tissue Engineering and Soft Tissue Mimicking. Tissue Engineering Part C: Methods, 28(7), 301–313. https://doi.org/10.1089/ten.tec.2022.0004

Malda, J., Visser, J., Melchels, F. P., Jüngst, T., Hennink, W. E., Dhert, W. J. A., Groll, J., & Hutmacher, D. W. (2013). 25th Anniversary Article: Engineering Hydrogels for Biofabrication. Advanced Materials, 25(36), 5011–5028. https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201302042