Xiaolu Deng

Master student

Electrospinning of alginate dialdehyde (ADA) – gelatin (Gel) combinations with synthetic polymers

 

Supervisors: Florian Ruther, Prof. Aldo R. Boccaccini

Alginate dialdehyde-gelatine (ADA-GEL) based hydrogels, frequently used biomaterials in tissue engineering, are being synthesized following an improved method developed at the FAU Institute of Biomaterials [1]. Due to their excellent properties such as biocompatibility and biodegradability, ADA-GEL is particularly suitable for soft tissue engineering applications. However, its field of application can be further specified by incorporating other functional polymers. In this project, electrospinning will be applied to fabricate fibrous scaffolds using combinations of ADA-GEL and synthetic polymers. The resulting fibre mats will then be characterized in terms of their degradation behaviour, mechanical and conductive properties as well as the biological response for applications in soft tissue engineering.

[1] B. Sarker, D. G. Papageoriou, R. Sliva, T. Zehnder, F. Gul-E-Noor, M. Bertmer, J. Kaschta, K. Chrissafis, R. Detsch, and A. R. Boccaccini, Fabrication of alginate-gelatin crosslinked hydrogel microcapsules and evaluation of the microstructure and physico-chemical properties, J. Mater, Chem.B, vol.2, no.11, p.1470, 2014.