Field of Research:
Polymer Materials
In Germany:
01.11.2010 -
31.10.2011
Host's project description
Turning to nature: made-to-measure hydrogels for medical systems
If the first thing you associate with a happy baby is a dry nappy, it probably does not occur to you that both the parents and the baby actually have the blessings of biomaterial research to thank for this satisfactory state of affairs. The reason for this is that nappies and other hygiene products for absorbing moisture contain the magic anti-moisture ingredients known as hydrogels. These are three-dimensional polymer networks which can store many times their own weight in water and release it again. Humans have copied this principle from nature where hydrogels proliferate, in plants for instance. But hydrogels have much greater potential than this, for example in bioresearch or medicine. They might release doses of drugs in the body or act as sensors. They might also be used as artificial muscles or to bond natural tissue with artificial implants. This would require gels with properties made-to-measure through utilising nanotechnology. To lay the foundations for this, Marga Cornelia Lensen is investigating ways of changing the structure of the gels and how they interact with cells. Consequently, one of the things she is going to do is to use novel nanoimprint technology, which, so far, has largely been tested on hard material, to structure hydrogels and insert them as carriers for experiments on living cells.
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Institut für Chemie
Technische Universität Berlin
Straße des 17. Juni 124
10623
Berlin
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