Tough biogel structures produced by 3-D printing
Researchers have developed a new way of making tough — but soft and wet — biocompatible materials, called “hydrogels,” into complex and intricately patterned shapes. The process might lead to injectable materials for delivering drugs or cells into the body; scaffolds for regenerating load-bearing tissues; or tough but flexible actuators for future robots, the researchers say. The new process is described in a paper in the journal Advanced Materials, co-authored by MIT associate professor of mechanical engineering Xuanhe Zhao and colleagues at MIT, Duke University, and Columbia University. Zhao says the new process can produce complex hydrogel structures that are “extremely tough and robust,” and compatible with the encapsulation of cells in the structures. That could make it possible to 3D-print complex hydrogel structures — for example, implants to be infused with cells and drugs and then placed in the body. Hydrogels, defined by water molecules encased in rubbery polymer networks that provide...