earticle

영어

A new type of polymeric material, supermacroporous cryogel has been developed which show
significant potential in various biomedical and biotechnological applications. Cryogels typically have interconnected supermacropores allowing unhindered diffusion of solutes of practically any size, as well as mass transport of nano- and even microparticles. The unique structure of cryogels, in combination with their osmotic, chemical and mechanical stability, makes them attractive matrices for chromatography of biological nanoparticles and cells. The sponge-type gels with interconnected pores in the range of 10-100 μm are synthesized under cryostatic conditions from any suitable polymeric materials [1]. The applications of supermacroporous cryogels have been evaluated on a number of technologically challenging processes like, cell separations, tissue engineering, bioreactors for therapeutic protein production and extracorporeal devices and high throughput screening. In the preparative cell separation area we have designed affinity based monolithic chromatographic approach for the selective separation of human blood lymphocytes, cord blood stem cells and different microbial cell types [2]. The specific cells bound on the chromatographic column can be effectively released by mechanically squeezing the cryogel matrix [3]. Other interesting application of the macroporous matrices have been the cultivation of the mammalian cells on the gelatin modified cryogels. The cells grow, proliferate and secrete the protein therapeutic continuously in the circulating medium when allowed to culture on the cryogel matrices [4]. We have successfully differentiated mesenchymal stem cells to neural cell types using 3-D cryogel scaffolds. We have also focussed in the direction of designing a bilayer model system for skin tissue engineering. The cryogel scaffolds generated from agarose-gelatin provided a gradient pore size and mechanical strength mimicking the cartilage and thus was used for designing cartilage tissue engineering scaffold. In conclusion the cryogel polymeric biomaterials have shown diverse biomedical and biotechnological applications.