ABSTRACTS

Professor Karperien talked about injectable hydrogels for biomedical applications. The presentation explained the development of injectable and in situ gelating hydrogels consisting of natural polymer conjugates that cross link in an enzymatic reaction and how we can make use of this material platform in biofabrication processes and tissue engineering. I will provide examples how we use these materials for developing solutions for relevant clinical problems like osteoarthritis and type I diabetes.

Professor Grijpma’s expertise lies in the development of functional polymeric materials, their structure-properties relationships and their processing into implantable structures. The preparation of functionalized macromers by ringopening polymerization of lactones and cyclic carbonates and subsequent functionalization to yield reactive end groups, allows the preparation of resorbable networks through rapid prototyping techniques such as stereolithography. Implants with a well defined geometry and biological functionality can readily be prepared in this manner.