Hydrogels and Injectable Therapeutics: How “Jell-O” May Become a Tissue Engineering Marvel
Abstract
Yes, I know what you are thinking: Jell-O? Why would Jell-O be used in a materials lab for growing cells? Well, it isn’t the taste of this childhood snack that makes it perfect for tissue engineering; it is its composition. The most abundant protein in our body is a compound called collagen, which makes up most of the extracellular matrix that cells live in. If you take collagen and break it up into smaller pieces, you get gelatin, the material that makes up Jell-O. Tissue engineers, who work to maintain, improve, and/or restore biological tissues in our bodies, can use gelatin to simulate an in vivo environment, meaning the natural environment of a living organism. This not only opens applications in tissue culture but also has innumerable applications for injectable therapeutics, which are injectable solutions that can regrow or enhance existing tissue. While the field of tissue engineering is in its infancy, promising therapeutics with tissue culture using scaffolds like gelatin are already being applied to synthetic skin and organs for injured patients.
Injuries and degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis, can lead to long recoveries and/or irreversible damage. To alleviate these effects, one could inject specific stem cells into the damaged area to grow themselves, trigger new growth within your body, and limit inflammation. However, direct injection of cells into the body results in low viability and significant dispersion of the cells throughout the body, moving them away from where they are needed most. Here is where our “scientific Jell-O” comes in. Gelatin, which is a hydrated complex of polymers, can be used to surround encapsulated cells, thereby increasing viability and stabilizing cell location following their injection. My research in Dr. Kyung Jae Jeong’s lab at the University of New Hampshire, which was funded by the Research Experience and Apprenticeship Program (REAP) through the Hamel Center for Undergraduate Research, looked at ways to alter hydrogels made of gelatin to make them more efficient when used in injectable therapeutics.