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Abstract
Hydrogels have been widely used in a variety of biomedical and biosensing applications due to their favourable mechanical properties (mimicking those of soft tissues in vivo while facilitating high sensor flexibility), typically low non-specific protein adsorption (minimizing inflammation in vivo and reducing sensor interference), and capacity for controlling diffusion (enabling prolonged drug release in vivo and non-covalent biomolecule immobilization on biosensors). However, the elasticity of conventional pre-formed hydrogels limits their capacity to be injected or fabricated into various 2D or 3D geometries targeted for the development of functional sensor coatings and/or structured biomaterials. In situ-gelling hydrogels that can spontaneously gel following mixing of functionalized precursor polymers thus offer the potential to substantially expand the scope of feasible hydrogel applications. In this presentation, I will discuss recent work from our lab focused on designing and exploiting the properties of dynamically-crosslinked in situ-gelling materials based on poly(ethylene glycol) or zwitterionic polymer derivatives, enabling the rational design of injectable, printable, and/or processible hydrogels to address key challenges in tissue engineering and biosensing applications. In particular, I will discuss applications of our in situ-gelling synthetic hydrogels in creating injectable cell delivery vehicles for functional muscle regeneration, fabricating injectable in situ macroporous hydrogels for cell delivery, electrospinning nanofibrous hydrogel networks to create aligned/multi-cellular skin regeneration materials, 3D printing for creating microstructured cell therapeutics, and ink jet printing of surface coating-based platforms that can enhance both the specificity and selectivity of enzymatic, DNA, or aptamer-based biosensors.
Speaker Bio
Todd Hoare is the Canada Research Chair in Engineered Smart Materials and a Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at McMaster University as well as the Director of the NSERC CREATE Training Program for Controlled Release Leaders (ContRoL). Dr. Hoare’s work on “smart” environmentally-responsive hydrogels, in situ-gelling/printable hydrogel materials, and nanoscale drug delivery vehicles has been profiled by Popular Science, Maclean’s, and BBC for its potential in solving clinical challenges through innovative materials design. He is a Fellow of the International Union of Societies in Biomaterials Science and Engineering (IUS-BSE), was awarded an NSERC E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship (2018), has been cited as part of the 2018 Class of Influential Researchers by Industrial Engineering & Chemistry Research, and has received the 2016 Early Career Investigator Award from the Canadian Biomaterials Society and the 2009 John Charles Polanyi Prize in Chemistry in recognition of his research. He is also the co-recipient of the 2023 NSERC Brockhouse Prize for Interdisciplinary Research for his work in developing innovative drug delivery vehicles in collaboration with clinicians. Dr. Hoare is a past-president of the Canadian Biomaterials Society (2016-2017) and the Canadian Chapter of the Controlled Release Society (2013-2015), and is currently the Chair of the Macromolecular Science and Engineering Division of the Chemical Institute of Canada. He also serves as one of the Executive Editors of Chemical Engineering Journal (where he leads the applied polymer materials section) and is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Biomacromolecules.