Bio-Inspired Hydrogels Development

Bio-Inspired Hydrogels are relatively new hydrogels that mimic disease-related physiological microenvironments and can be used to study how to optimize targeted drug delivery, as well as to predict the behavior of these drug delivery systems in vivo and the development of disease. As a leader in advanced drug delivery, CD Formulation offers you professional bionic hydrogel development services.

About the Types of Bio-Inspired Hydrogels

• Monomeric bio-Inspired hydrogels

Examples of bionic preparation of hydrogels from monomers are the creation of mussel bionic adhesives. An adhesion protein that mussels can secrete in water allows them to have a very strong adhesion to wet surfaces underwater. This protein contains high levels of the catechol amino acid levodopa (DOPA), which forms copolymers containing large amounts of catechol. And the coordination between catechol and iron can affect the hardness and self-healing ability of mussel foot filaments. Researchers developed a method to use pH to modulate the coordination cross-linking between catechol-iron ion polymers and to prepare novel self-healing hydrogels with elastic properties even close to those of covalently cross-linked polymeric materials.

• Polymeric bio-Inspired hydrogels

Polymers are formed when monomers polymerize, and if more than one monomer constitutes the polymer, then the sequence of monomer composition in the polymer affects the properties of the polymer. In such hydrogels, the polymer chains are composed of proteins and their block copolymers with well-defined sequences. In biomacromolecule-based hydrogels, proteins can self-assemble to form nanostructures or cross-linked regions, allowing the hydrogel to be responsive to pH, temperature, and ionic strength.

Bio-Inspired Hydrogels Development

CD Formulation provides bionic hydrogel development services, including morphology bionic design, mechanical property tuning, and structural analysis. Based on our professional laboratory team and instrumentation, we can provide a full range of solutions for your project and can provide customized services for your project to help you quickly develop your drug.

• Morphological biomimetic design

Functional biological structures often also have very specific geometrical and morphological characteristics, so hydrogels prepared by biomimetics that resemble biological structures in macroscopic geometry may also exhibit specific functions. The octopus foot is a popular bionic object that uses muscle drive to control the pressure inside the foot and has switchable adhesion properties at the interface. It is also possible to mimic electric eel physiological structures, with cation-anion repetitive hydrogel membranes capable of using ionic gradients between microchambers to generate electrical forces with potential differences exceeding 100 V; and structural color hydrogels that mimic animal color-changing structures that can heal themselves.

• Mechanical properties tuning

A direct factor affecting the mechanical properties of hydrogels is compositional differences. Due to the synergistic effect of metal coordination and increased physical hydrophobic bonding, the hydrogel mechanical properties can be tuned to shorten the distance between polymer chains, further improving the hydrogel properties.

Another factor affecting the hydrogel properties is the content of ionic coordination bonds. Adjusting the ratio of ionic coordination bonds can adjust the fracture stress and elastic modulus.

• Structural analysis

The morphology of the gel sections was observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to explore the changes in physical network structure. P-hydrogels formed by hydrophobic bonding, multiple hydrogen bonding, π-π stacking and chain entanglement exhibit a homogeneous network structure that functions similarly to the role of a soft extracellular matrix in biological tissues, maintaining the entire gel skeleton and providing toughness.