Project dates: 1 Jul 2008 – 30 Jun 2011

The vision of this work was to develop a world-leading capability for characterising the complex mechanical and structural properties of gel-like materials critical to the next generation of healthcare solutions.

The key output from this work includes: three journal manuscripts; an invited book chapter; two invited conference presentations; three conference presentations; an ASTM International Standard Guide; two press releases; and a Metronomia article. Further, the potential for attracting new business through a measurement service has been demonstrated.

NPL staff involved with the project

Melissa Mather
Paul Tomlins

Collaborations

• Collaborative work has been carried out with the Optical Radiation and Photonics Group, the Materials Division through joint work with the Polymers team and the Ultrasound group.
• External collaborations have been established with the Polymer Chemistry and Biomaterials group at the University of Twente, The Netherlands. Work was also carried out with the School of Clinical Sciences and School of Chemistry at the University of Nottingham.
• Further external collaboration has been established through NPL's participation in the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Regenerative Medicine. This is a national centre with many links to key industrial partners in the Regenerative Medicine field.

Publications

• ASTM standard: ASTM F2900 - 11 Standard Guide for Characterization of Hydrogels used in Regenerative Medicine
• Translation of Emerging Hydrogel Therapies: The Role of Metrology
  M. L. Mather and P. E. Tomlins
  Biomaterials Developments and Applications, Series: Advances in Biology and Medicine (eds. Henri Bourg and Amaury Lisle, Nova Science Publishers 2010) ISBN: 978-1-60876-476-1
• Hydrogels in regenerative medicine: towards understanding structure-function relationships
  M. L. Mather and P. E. Tomlins
  Regenerative Medicine, 5(5), p809-821, 2010
• Characterising hydrogels for regenerative medicine
  Metronomia, Spring 2009
• Liquid viscoelasticity probed by a mesoscale piezoelectric bimorph cantilever
  M. L. Mather, M. Rides, C. Allen and P. E. Tomlins
  Submitted to the Journal of Rheology
• Tissue transglutaminase (TG-2) modified amniotic membrane: a novel scaffold for tissue engineering applications
  D. Y. S. Chau, S. V. Brown, M. L. Mather et al
  Submitted to Acta Biomaterialia

Conferences and Presentations

• Hydrogel mechanical properties probed by a mesoscale piezoelectric bimorph cantilever
  M. L. Mather, M. Rides, C. Allen, N. Faruqui, P. E. Tomlins
  Presentation at Euromat 2011
• Hydrogel Metrology
  M. L. Mather
  Biofuture 2011
  A draft ASTM standard guide on characterization of hydrogels used in Regenerative Medicine has been presented at the ASTM F04 committee meeting in Vancouver
• In situ monitoring of sol-gel transitions in PEO-PPO-PEO aqueous solutions
  Oral presentation at the International Congress on Biohydrogels, 2nd International Congress on Biohydrogels (2009)
• Characterisation of hydrogels used in regenerative medicine
  Poster presented at the Tissue and Cell Engineering Society conference (2009)
• Translation of porous hydrogels into viable products for tissue engineering
  Mather ML
  Summer School on Porous Hydrogels for Biomedical Applications (2009, invited)

Further opportunities

Funds granted from the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Regenerative Medicine for joint work between the Electrical systems and optics research division, University of Nottingham and the Biomaterials group, NPL, studying cell adhesion.