IMX Talks - Protein-Based Biomaterials with Controlled Morphology for Tissue Engineering
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Event details
Date | 03.02.2025 |
Hour | 11:00 › 12:00 |
Speaker | Dr. Fotios Christakopoulos, Stanford, USA |
Location | |
Category | Conferences - Seminars |
Event Language | English |
Polymeric biomaterials are increasingly being used as extracellular matrix (ECM) mimics to grow cells into functional tissue. While initial approaches involved amorphous hydrogels, there is increased interest more research is focusing on morphological cues as these better imitate the natural ECM. The presentation will cover my work on (1) controlling the microstructure of hydrogels consisting of natural proteins and (2) introducing conductivity through recombinant fibrous proteins. Collagen is a fibrous protein and a major component of the ECM with excellent cell-instructive properties and biocompatibility. Using 3D bioprinting we fabricate collagen hydrogels with tunable porosity and with control over the collagen fiber orientation by adjusting the processing parameters. The effect of the different morphologies is evaluated with human corneal mesenchymal stem cells. However, a drawback of using natural proteins, such as collagen, is high batch-to-batch variability with an alternate approach overcoming this challenge being recombinant proteins. Our group has previously demonstrated a library of recombinant bio-macromolecular hydrogels, combining a chemically modified hyaluronic acid with a modified elastin-like protein. Here, I will present an approach introduce conductivity as a tunable parameter in these hydrogels. Many cells are known to respond to electrically conductive materials. However, to date electrical conductivity is mostly achieved through synthetic polymers and carbon materials, resulting into limited translational utility. This is due to their lack of biodegradability and injectability. To overcome this challenge, we have used recombinant engineered conductive protein nanowires. The resulting hydrogel is injectable and biodegradable and is found to promote neuronal maturation of human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived neural progenitor cells with the potential to be used in a cell-based therapy for spinal cord injury.
Bio: Fotis is a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University studying protein-based materials for tissue engineering under the direction of Prof. Sarah Heilshorn. He received his PhD in Materials Science from ETH Zurich, his M.Sc. in Medical Engineering from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, and his B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens. His doctoral thesis work centered on polymer technology and the understanding of re-entanglement kinetics and development of processing pathways of initially low-entangled ultra-high molecular weight polymers. He joined Stanford in 2023 as a Swiss National Science Foundation Postdoc Mobility fellow, where he has been working on controlling the microstructure of collagen-based materials through processing parameters and developing a protein-based conductive hydrogel for neural applications.
Practical information
- General public
- Free
Organizer
- Prof. Harm-Anton Klok & Prof. Amstad
Contact
- Prof. Harm-Anton Klok & Prof. Amstad