Dendritic macroporous hydrogels prepared by crystal templating
AssigneeBoard of Regents, The University of Texas System
InventorsScott Zawko, Christine Schmidt
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Abstract
The present invention includes a hydrogel and a method of making a porous hydrogel by preparing an aqueous mixture of an uncrosslinked polymer and a crystallizable molecule; casting the mixture into a vessel; allowing the cast mixture to dry to form an amorphous hydrogel film; seeding the cast mixture with a seed crystal of the crystallizable molecule; growing the crystallizable molecule into a crystal structure within the uncrosslinked polymer; crosslinking the polymer around the crystal structure under conditions in which the crystal structure within the crosslinked polymer is maintained; and dissolving the crystals within the crosslinked polymer to form the porous hydrogel.
Claims19
A system comprising:
- a hydrogel composition;
- and
- a protein coupled to the hydrogel composition;
- wherein the hydrogel composition includes:
- (a) uncrosslinked hyaluronic acid;
- and (b) uncrosslinked alginate located around the uncrosslinked hyaluronic acid;
- wherein the uncrosslinked alginate is configured to crosslink around the uncrosslinked hyaluronic acid with an ion when the uncrosslinked alginate is exposed to the ion;
- wherein the uncrosslinked hyaluronic acid is not configured to crosslink with the ion when the uncrosslinked hyaluronic acid is exposed to the ion.
A system comprising:
- a substrate;
- a hydrogel composition on the substrate;
- wherein the hydrogel composition includes:
- (a) uncrosslinked hyaluronic acid;
- and (b) uncrosslinked alginate located around the uncrosslinked hyaluronic acid;
- wherein the uncrosslinked alginate is configured to crosslink around the uncrosslinked hyaluronic acid with an ion when the uncrosslinked alginate is exposed to the ion;
- wherein the uncrosslinked hyaluronic acid is not configured to crosslink with the ion when the uncrosslinked hyaluronic acid is exposed to the ion.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.