Journal article
Super-soft hydrogel particles with tunable elasticity in a microfluidic blood capillary model
J Cui, M Björnmalm, K Liang, C Xu, JP Best, X Zhang, F Caruso
Advanced Materials | Published : 2014
Abstract
Super-soft PEG hydrogel particles with tunable elasticity are prepared via a mesoporous silica templating method. The deformability behavior of these particles, in a microfluidic blood-capillary model, can be tailored to be similar to that of human red blood cells. These results provide a new platform for the design and development of soft hydrogel particles for investigating bio-nano interactions.
Related Projects (3)
Grants
Awarded by Australian Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Australian Research Council under the Australian Laureate Fellowship (F.C., FL120100030) and the Super Science Fellowship (F.C., FS110200025) schemes, as well as the Australian Government through an International Postgraduate Research Scholarship (M. B.) and an Australian Postgraduate Award (M.B.). K.L. acknowledges the CSIRO OCE Postdoctoral Fellowship and Science Leader schemes. J.P.B. acknowledges funding from the EMPA Postdoc program co-funded by FP7:Marie Curie Actions. This work was performed in part at both the Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication in the Victorian Node and at the Optofab Node of the Australian National Fabrication Facility, and in part at the Advanced Fluorescence Imaging Platform at the Melbourne Materials Institute, The University of Melbourne. Christian Lobbe is thanked for help with the force spectroscopy measurements and analysis.