It’s important to know one’s new cells are getting nourishment.
It’s important to know one’s new cells are getting nourishment. Rice University scientists are working on a way to tell for sure.
The Rice lab of bioengineer Jane Grande-Allen has invented soft microparticle sensors to monitor oxygen levels in hydrogels that serve as scaffolds for growing tissues.
Hydrogels being developed at Rice’s Brown School of Engineering and elsewhere can be placed at the site of an injury. Seeded with live cells, they encourage the growth of new muscle, cartilage or, perhaps someday, entire organs. Ideally, the hydrogel attracts blood vessels that infuse the material and bring nourishment to the cells.
Grande-Allen and her team designed their fluorescent particles to report on oxygen levels inside gels. Their work appears in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Biomaterials Science and Engineering.
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