Alginate: properties and biomedical applications

Utilization of polymers as biomaterials has greatly impacted the advancement of modern medicine. Specifically, polymeric biomaterials that are biodegradable provide the significant advantage of being able to be broken down and removed after they have served their function. Applications are wide ranging with degradable polymers being used clinically as surgical sutures and implants. In order to fit functional demand, materials with desired physical, chemical, biological, biomechanical and degradation properties must be selected. Fortunately, a wide range of natural and synthetic degradable polymers has been investigated for biomedical applications with novel materials constantly being developed to meet new challenges. This review summarizes the most recent advances in the field over the past 4 years, specifically highlighting new and interesting discoveries in tissue engineering and drug delivery applications.

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Biomedical Applications of Biodegradable Polymers

Injectable hydrogels with biodegradability have in situ formability which in vitro/in vivo allows an effective and homogeneous encapsulation of drugs/cells, and convenient in vivo surgical operation in a minimally invasive way, causing smaller scar size and less pain for patients. Therefore, they have found a variety of biomedical applications, such as drug delivery, cell encapsulation, and tissue engineering. This critical review systematically summarizes the recent progresses on biodegradable and injectable hydrogels fabricated from natural polymers (chitosan, hyaluronic acid, alginates, gelatin, heparin, chondroitin sulfate, etc.) and biodegradable synthetic polymers (polypeptides, polyesters, polyphosphazenes, etc.). The review includes the novel naturally based hydrogels with high potential for biomedical applications developed in the past five years which integrate the excellent biocompatibility of natural polymers/synthetic polypeptides with structural controllability via chemical modification. The gelation and biodegradation which are two key factors to affect the cell fate or drug delivery are highlighted. A brief outlook on the future of injectable and biodegradable hydrogels is also presented (326 references).

Injectable and biodegradable hydrogels: gelation, biodegradation and biomedical applications

Degradable and cell-compatible hydrogels can be designed to mimic the physical and biochemical characteristics of native extracellular matrices and provide tunability of degradation rates and related properties under physiological conditions. Hence, such hydrogels are finding widespread application in many bioengineering fields, including controlled bioactive molecule delivery, cell encapsulation for controlled three-dimensional culture, and tissue engineering. Cellular processes, such as adhesion, proliferation, spreading, migration, and differentiation, can be controlled within degradable, cell-compatible hydrogels with temporal tuning of biochemical or biophysical cues, such as growth factor presentation or hydrogel stiffness. However, thoughtful selection of hydrogel base materials, formation chemistries, and degradable moieties is necessary to achieve the appropriate level of property control and desired cellular response. In this review, hydrogel design considerations and materials for hydrogel preparation, ranging from natural polymers to synthetic polymers, are overviewed. Recent advances in chemical and physical methods to crosslink hydrogels are highlighted, as well as recent developments in controlling hydrogel degradation rates and modes of degradation. Special attention is given to spatial or temporal presentation of various biochemical and biophysical cues to modulate cell response in static (i.e., non-degradable) or dynamic (i.e., degradable) microenvironments. This review provides insight into the design of new cell-compatible, degradable hydrogels to understand and modulate cellular processes for various biomedical applications.

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2013/cs/c3cs60040h

Designing degradable hydrogels for orthogonal control of cell microenvironments

A compact multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) antenna with a small size of 26×40 mm2 is proposed for portable ultrawideband (UWB) applications. The antenna consists of two planar-monopole (PM) antenna elements with microstrip-fed printed on one side of the substrate and placed perpendicularly to each other to achieve good isolation. To enhance isolation and increase impedance bandwidth, two long protruding ground stubs are added to the ground plane on the other side and a short ground strip is used to connect the ground planes of the two PMs together to form a common ground. Simulation and measurement are used to study the antenna performance in terms of reflection coefficients at the two input ports, coupling between the two input ports, radiation pattern, realized peak gain, efficiency and envelope correlation coefficient for pattern diversity. Results show that the MIMO antenna has an impedance bandwidth of larger than 3.1-10.6 GHz, low mutual coupling of less than -15 dB, and a low envelope correlation coefficient of less than 0.2 across the frequency band, making it a good candidate for portable UWB applications.

Compact MIMO Antenna for Portable Devices in UWB Applications

A two-element diversity planar antenna for a multiple-input multiple-output application is proposed. By adopting two Y-shaped radiators, the antenna provides wideband impedance matching characteristics over the desired frequency band. To reduce the mutual coupling between two radiating elements, three stubs are inserted in the ground plane. Good impedance matching and improved isolation characteristics are observed. The measured impedance bandwidth of the proposed antenna ranges from 2.27 GHz to 10.2 GHz for a return loss of less than 10 dB. Parametric analysis has been conducted to investigate the effect of radiator length and the insertion of stubs on the impedance bandwidth and isolation characteristics. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 50: 1352–1356, 2008; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.23389

Design of a diversity antenna with stubs for UWB applications

Three-Dimensional Bioprinting of Cell-Laden Constructs Using Polysaccharide-Based Self-Healing Hydrogels

Proximal junctional kyphosis (PJK) is a common radiographic finding after long spinal fusion. A number of studies on the causes, risk factors, prevention, and treatment of PJK have been conducted. However, no clear definition of PJK has been established. In this paper, we aimed to clarify the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of PJK by reviewing relevant papers that have been published to date. A literature search was conducted on PubMed using "proximal junctional", "proximal junctional kyphosis", and "proximal junctional failure" as search keywords. Only studies that were published in English were included in this study. The incidence of PJK ranges from 5% to 46%, and it has been reported that 66% of cases occur 3 months after surgery and approximately 80% occur within 18 months. A number of studies have reported that there is no significantly different clinical outcome between PJK patients and non-PJK patients. One study showed that PJK patients expressed more pain than non-PJK patients. However, recent studies focused on proximal junctional failure (PJF), which is accepted as a severe form of PJK. PJF showed significant adverse impact in clinical aspect such as pain, neurologic deficit, ambulatory difficulties, and social isolation. Numerous previous studies have identified various risk factors and reported on the treatment and prevention of PJK. Based on these studies, we determined the clinical significance and impact of PJK. In addition, it is important to find a strategic approach to the proper treatment of PJK.

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Jaewon Lee

Papers

Design of a diversity antenna with stubs for UWB applications

Three-Dimensional Bioprinting of Cell-Laden Constructs Using Polysaccharide-Based Self-Healing Hydrogels

Proximal Junctional Kyphosis: Diagnosis, Pathogenesis, and Treatment.

Injectable hydrogels prepared from partially oxidized hyaluronate and glycol chitosan for chondrocyte encapsulation.

The effect of spacer arm length of an adhesion ligand coupled to an alginate gel on the control of fibroblast phenotype.