Precision Scaffolds for Tissue Engineering

Scaffolds are used to regenerate tissue and cells damaged by various diseases. The physiochemical properties (e.g. stiffness) of the scaffolds must match the characteristics of the native tissue to allow optimal growth and proliferation of cells, and, consequently, regeneration of tissue. Protein based hydrogels present macroscopic properties encoded in the microscopic properties of their biological components and they can be customised to suit a particular environment and tissue. The advantages of protein based scaffolds over their synthetic counterparts can be summarised as follows: 1) features for 3D percolation and gelation are encoded by the sequence that specifies the structure; 2) genetic engineering required to create virtually any sequence is fairly straightforward; 3) stimuli-responsiveness can be controlled by engineering the interactions between building blocks. The project aims to design and characterise new stimuli-responsive protein-based scaffolds (hydrogels) to regenerate target tissues (e.g. liver). Different types of proteins will be expressed in e. coli using autoinduction and IPTG induction and purified using Ni-NTA columns. They will be mixed together to achieve different characteristics and nanostructures. The properties of the new agnostic scaffolds (e.g. stiffness, biocompatibility, biodegradability, swelling, porosity) will be characterized using physical methods (e.g. microrheology, rheology, microscopies, imaging techniques) and they will be optimised to suit the hepatic environment.