8 documents found, page 1 of 1
Modular functionalization of laminarin to create value-added naturally derived ...
Costa, Ana M. S.; Rodrigues, João M. M.; Pérez-Madrigal, Maria M.; Dove, Andrew P.; Mano, João F.With society's growing awareness of climate change, novel renewable and naturally sourced materials have received increasing attention as substitutes for petroleum-based products. Laminarin (LAM-OH) is a highly abundant, nontoxic, degradable polysaccharide found in marine organisms and hence is a promising sustainable polymeric candidate. This work reports on a simple, environmentally friendly, and customizable...
Oxidized cashew gum scaffolds for tissue engineering
Maciel, Jeanny S.; Azevedo, Sara; Correia, Clara R.; Costa, Ana M. S.; Costa, Rui Filipe Ramos; Magalhães, Francisco A.; Monteiro, Aliny Abreu deIn the last few years, several strategies have been proposed to fabricate scaffolds for tissue engineering (TE) applications; however, they are based on harsh and timeâ consuming techniques. The choice for natural polymers such as cashew gum (CG) allows to circumvent the demands of biocompatibility and degradability of TE systems. In this work, CG, a polysaccharide derived from Anacardium occidentale trees, is ...
Tuneable spheroidal hydrogel particles for cell and drug encapsulation
Bjorge, Isabel M.; Costa, Ana M. S.; Sofia Silva, A.; Vidal, Joao P. O.; Nóbrega, J. M.; Mano, J. F.The need to better mimic native tissues has accompanied research in tissue engineering and controlled drug delivery. The development of new platforms for cell and drug encapsulation followed the same trend, and studying the influence of the delivery material system's geometry has been gaining momentum. Aiming to investigate how an increase in surface area and varying particle shape could impact drug release and...
Tuneable spheroidal hydrogel particles for cell and drug encapsulation
Bjorge, Isabel M.; Costa, Ana M. S.; Silva, A. Sofia; Vidal, João P. O.; Nóbrega, J. Miguel; Mano, João F.The need to better mimic native tissues has accompanied research in tissue engineering and controlled drug delivery. The development of new platforms for cell and drug encapsulation followed the same trend, and studying the influence of the delivery material system's geometry has been gaining momentum. Aiming to investigate how an increase in surface area and varying particle shape could impact drug release and...
Preparation of well-dispersed chitosan/alginate hollow multilayered microcapsul...
Ribeiro, Carla; Borges, João; Costa, Ana M. S.; Gaspar, Vítor M.; Bermudez, Verónica de Zea; Mano, João F.Hollow multilayered capsules have shown massive potential for being used in the biomedical and biotechnology fields, in applications such as cellular internalization, intracellular trafficking, drug delivery, or tissue engineering. In particular, hollow microcapsules, developed by resorting to porous calcium carbonate sacrificial templates, natural-origin building blocks and the prominent Layer-by-Layer (LbL) t...
The potential of cashew gum functionalization as building blocks for layer-by-l...
Leite, Álvaro J.; Costa, Rui R.; Costa, Ana M. S.; Maciel, Jeanny S.; Costa, José. F. G.; Paula, Regina C. M. de; Mano, J. F.Cashew gum (CG), an exudate polysaccharide from Anacardium occidentale trees, was carboxymethylated (CGCm) and oxidized (CGO). These derivatives were characterized by FTIR and zeta potential measurements confirming the success of carboxymethylation and oxidation reactions. Nanostructured multilayered films were then produced through layer-by-layer (LbL) assembly in conjugation with chitosan via electrostatic in...
Solvent-free strategy yields size and shape-uniform capsules
Costa, Ana M. S.; Mano, João F.Capsules with a liquefied core were fabricated via the assembly of polymeric droplets induced by superamphiphobic surfaces. These highly repellent substrates exhibit distinct features such as (i) an easy and precise control over the particle size and shape, (ii) a high encapsulation efficiency, (iii) mild processing conditions, and (iv) the possibility to include any object in either a water or oil-based liquid...
Bioinspired ultratough hydrogel with fast recovery, self-healing, injectability...
Azevedo, Sara; Costa, Ana M. S.; Andersen, Amanda; Choi, Insung S.; Birkedal, Henrik; Mano, João F.Inspired by the mussel byssus adhesiveness, a highly hydrated polymeric structure is designed to combine, for the first time, a set of interesting features for load-bearing purposes. These characteristics include: i) a compressive strength and stiffness in the MPa range, ii) toughness and the ability to recover it upon successive cyclic loading, iii) the ability to quickly self-heal upon rupture, iv) the possib...