Growth factor delivery vehicles

Inclusion of growth factors (GFs) into tissue engineering scaffolds has been the focus of various research groups, to utilise these GFs to direct specific cellular response and function. The ability to spatially and temporally control the release and uptake of these GFs will significantly enhance the applicability and therapeutic outcomes of these inherent biologically active molecules. In our group, we focus on using a unique hydrogel system, that has the ability to covalently bind GFs without the need of any chemical modification reaction. This novel system is based on synthetic poly(vinyl alcohol) grafted with tyramine groups (PVA-Tyr), which has tailorable degradation time frames dependent, primarily driven by hydrolysis. Please see some selected publications below:

1. P Atienza-Roca; DC Kieser; X Cui; Y Ramaswamy; GJ Hooper; AC Clarkson; PJ Martens; L Wise; TBF Woodfield; KS Lim*. Visible Light Mediated PVA-Tyramine Hydrogels for Covalent Incorporation and Controlled Release of Functional Growth Factors. RSC Biomaterials Science, 2020, 8, 5005-5019. doi: 10.1039/d0bm00603c
2. KS Lim; JJ Roberts; MH Alves; LA Poole-Warren; PJ Martens. Understanding and tailoring the degradation of PVA-Tyramine hydrogels. Journal of Applied Polymer Science, 2015.132(26). doi: 10.1002/app.42142
3. KS Lim; MH Alves; LA Poole-Warren; PJ Martens. Covalent incorporation of non-chemically modified gelatin into degradable PVA-tyramine hydrogels. Biomaterials, 2013.34(29): p. 7097-7105. doi: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2013.06.005