Gels and hydrogels articles within Nature Materials

Featured

  • Article |

    The use of encoded microparticles in industrial settings is hampered by issues of scalability, decoding robustness and encoding density. Now, easily decodable microparticles with spatially patterned rare-earth upconversion nanocrystals, exponentially scalable encoding capacities and ultralow decoding false-alarm rates that are insensitive to harsh processing environments and can be used in practical applications such as durable anti-counterfeiting labels and multiplexed bioassays are reported.

    • Jiseok Lee
    • , Paul W. Bisso
    •  & Patrick S. Doyle

  • Article |

    Mechanical cues from the local cellular microenvironment can direct cell fate. Now, experiments with human mesenchymal stem cells cultured on phototunable soft poly(ethylene glycol) hydrogels show that the cells remember past physical environments—with the transcriptional co-activators YAP and TAZ acting as a mechanical rheostat—and therefore that appropriate doses of mechanical cues can be used to manipulate the cells’ fate.

    • Chun Yang
    • , Mark W. Tibbitt
    •  & Kristi S. Anseth

  • News & Views |

    Synthetic polymer gels with certain surface chemistries can be glued together by a simple and inexpensive method that uses commercially available silica nanoparticles. Biological tissues can also be joined by this nanotechnological route, eliminating the need for sutures, additional adhesives or chemical reactions.

    • Eric A. Appel
    •  & Oren A. Scherman

  • News & Views |

    Advances in photochemistry have profoundly impacted the way in which biology is studied. Now, a photoactivated enzymatic patterning method that offers spatiotemporal control over the presentation of bioactive proteins to direct cells in three-dimensional culture significantly expands the available chemical toolbox.

    • Daniel L. Alge
    •  & Kristi S. Anseth

  • Article |

    Polyampholyte hydrogels synthesized from the random polymerization of oppositely charged ionic monomers are shown to be mechanically tough and highly viscoelastic. Strong ionic bonds within the gel act as permanent crosslinks and weaker ionic bonds reversibly break and re-form, enhancing the fracture resistance, shock absorbance and self-healing properties of the materials.

    • Tao Lin Sun
    • , Takayuki Kurokawa
    •  & Jian Ping Gong

  • Article |

    Adhesive interactions between stem cells and the extracellular matrix are known to regulate stem cell differentiation, yet the underlying mechanisms are not well understood. It is now shown that fate decisions of stem cells encapsulated in covalently crosslinked hydrogels are regulated, independently of matrix mechanics and cell morphology, by the cellular tension generated from cell-induced degradation of the hydrogels.

    • Sudhir Khetan
    • , Murat Guvendiren
    •  & Jason A. Burdick

  • News & Views |

    Pliable gels of fibrin, a fibrous protein involved in blood clotting and linked to cancer, select cells with high in vivo aggressiveness and 'stemness' from a pool of cancer cells.

    • Jae-Won Shin
    •  & Dennis E. Discher

  • News & Views |

    A polymer hydrogel system combines chemical, thermal and mechanical responses in a reversible manner and thus exhibits homeostatic and self-regulatory behaviour similar to that of living systems.

    • Eugenia Kumacheva

  • Article |

    The sustained release of both hydrophilic and hydrophobic immunomodulators for metastatic melanoma by nanoscale liposomal polymeric gels administered intratumorally or systemically is demonstrated. It is also shown that such a co-delivery approach delays tumour growth and increases the survival of tumour-bearing mice, and that its efficacy results from the activation of both innate and adaptative immune responses.

    • Jason Park
    • , Stephen H. Wrzesinski
    •  & Tarek M. Fahmy

  • Article |

    The spreading and differentiation of stem cells is influenced by the mechanical properties—in particular by the stiffness—of the extracellular matrix. Now, experiments on epidermal stem cells cultured on substrates with a covalently attached collagen coating show that stem cells sense the stiffness of the substrate through the anchoring density of collagen fibres.

    • Britta Trappmann
    • , Julien E. Gautrot
    •  & Wilhelm T. S. Huck

  • Article |

    Mesoporous colloidal gels with solid-like viscoelasticity formed from oil-in-water nanoemulsions are reported. Gelation is thermoreversible and occurs through interdroplet bridging of an end-functionalized oligomer. The gels can be photocrosslinked to encapsulate lipophilic biomolecules for their subsequent release through ultraviolet photolysis.

    • Matthew E. Helgeson
    • , Shannon E. Moran
    •  & Patrick S. Doyle

  • News & Views |

    Mimicking the complexity of the extracellular environment in synthetic hydrogels is hard. A simple two-photon excitation strategy to simultaneously immobilize multiple proteins with spatial control in three dimensions shows promise.

    • Jennifer L. West

  • Article |

    Bioactive proteins within hydrogel scaffolds used to culture cells can guide cellular activities, but the control of the location of the proteins has proved difficult. Using the multiphoton laser of a confocal microscope, simultaneous patterning of two growth factors, which remain bioactive after immobilization, is now shown in three-dimensional hydrogels. The technique should be applicable to the patterning of a variety of proteins.

    • Ryan G. Wylie
    • , Shoeb Ahsan
    •  & Molly S. Shoichet

  • News & Views |

    Empty liquids and equilibrium gels have so far been only theoretical possibilities, predicted for colloids with patchy interactions. But evidence of both has now been found in Laponite, a widely studied clay.

    • Willem K. Kegel
    •  & Henk N. W. Lekkerkerker

  • Article |

    A polymeric hydrogel coating shows impressive antimicrobial activity against both bacteria and fungi. The biocompatible and reusable coating, formed of a polycationic nanoporous hydrogel, is thought to act by drawing anionic sections of phospholipids on bacterial cell membranes into its pores, causing membrane disruption and cell death.

    • Peng Li
    • , Yin Fun Poon
    •  & Mary B. Chan-Park

  • News & Views |

    Heating and cooling of peptide amphiphile suspensions converts disorganized nanofibres into liquid-crystalline nanofibre bundles that gel on addition of salts. The noodle-shaped strings of gel can entrap and align cells.

    • Timothy J. Deming

  • News & Views |

    A cationic nanosized hydrogel (nanogel) shows controlled antigen delivery in vivo following intranasal administration and hence holds promise for a clinically effective adjuvant-free and needle-free vaccine system.

    • Herman F. Staats
    •  & Kam W. Leong

  • Article |

    Peptide-based molecules that self-assemble into lamellar plaques with fibrous texture on heating, subsequently break on cooling to form long-range aligned bundles of nanofibres. This thermal route to monodomain gels is compatible for living cells and allows the formation of noodle-like viscoelastic strings of any length.

    • Shuming Zhang
    • , Megan A. Greenfield
    •  & Samuel I. Stupp

  • News & Views |

    So far, flow-induced transitions and structures formed by the assembly of surfactant micelles have been reversible. Now, a microporous extensional flow process forms a permanent gel, which remains intact even after flow has stopped.

    • Matteo Pasquali

  • Article |

    Viscoelastic gels can be made by using flow to induce structure into solutions containing surfactant micelles. However, the gels disintegrate soon after flow stoppage. By using a microfluidic-assisted laminar-flow process to generate very high extension rates, it is now shown that permanent gels can be made, creating new opportunities for applications.

    • Mukund Vasudevan
    • , Eric Buse
    •  & Radhakrishna Sureshkumar

Browse broader subjects

Browse Gels and hydrogels across other nature.com journals