Category: News

Our recent paper on the functionalization of bacterial cellulose (BC) with metal nanoparticles is published in Advanced Functional Materials:

Read the paper here!

This work describes a generic strategy for adsorbing well-defined colloidal metal nanoparticles in BC, which render exciting and useful nanocomposite materials. We investigate, among others, a new phenomena that we call “mechanoplasmonic effect”. By compressing the BC composites we can reduce the separation between adsorbed nanoparticles, resulting in dramatic changes in the optical properties of the materials. We show that this effect can be used for sensing proteins, generating heat and improving two-photon absorption.

The paper describes a novel and unique hydrogel system that combines robust bioorthogonal cross-linking with a dynamic but specific peptide-folding mediated strategy for tuning cross-linking density and functionality. We show, for the first time, that the properties of bioprinted structures can be tailored post printing through specific interactions. This was, among others, shown by triggering an enzyme mediated biomineralization process in 3D printed structures.

The paper can be found here:

C. Aronsson,  M. Jury,  S. Naeimipour, F. Rasti Boroojeni, J. Christoffersson, P. Lifwergren, C.-F. Mandenius, R. Selegård, D. Aili, “Dynamic peptide-folding mediated biofunctionalization and modulation of hydrogels for 4D bioprinting”, 2020, Biofabrication, Accepted. (PDF)

M2lab has together with several close collaborators received a framework grant from The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF) for the project “HEALiX: Advanced Wound Care Materials for Non-Healing Wounds”. The projects will be led together with with Prof. Torbjörn Bengtsson (ÖrU), Dr. Johan Junker (LiU/KMC RÖ), and Kristiina Oksaman (LTU). Non-healing wounds leads to large suffering and are an enormous burden to the healthcare system. In a typical hospital setting, 25-40% of all beds are occupied by patients with wounds, and more than half of the health care resources in the outpatient setting are spent on wound treatment. HEALiX will bring together clinical and industrial wound care experts and leading academic researchers to address this huge medical and societal problem. Our aim is to develop a new generation of advanced but affordable multifunctional wound dressing materials that will give clinicians new and better means to go beyond wound management and instead focus on wound healing. We will jointly develop and evaluate advanced nanocellulose-based materials for moist wound healing and novel strategies to combine these materials with robust embedded diagnostic capabilities to facilitate treatment optimization. Moreover, strategies to combine nanocellulose wound dressing with peptide-based antimicrobial compounds will be explored to suppress infection and eradicate biofilms in non-healing wounds.

Thuy will join as a MSCA Fellow in May and will work on nanoplasmonic biosensors for biological drugs

The Laboratory of Molecular Materials has received a generous grant from the Carl Trygger Foundation for purchasing of a new bioprinter.

Read our new open access paper on 3D hydrogels for liver-on-chip applications here!

Rouhbakhsh, D. Aili, E. Martinsson, A. Svärd, M. Bäck, M. R. Housaindokht, K. P. R. Nilsson, R. Selegård, ” Self-Assembly of a Structurally Defined Chiro-Optical Peptide–Oligothiophene Hybrid Material”, ACS Omega, 2018, 3, 15066–15075.

The paper is available OA here!