Synthetic Poly(Ethylene Glycol)-Based Hydrogels for Biomedical Applications

Abstract

Synthetic PEG-based hydrogels have been widely used in biomedical applications including drug delivery, wound dressing, tissue engineering and antimicrobial due to their ability to mimic physical property of different tissues and encapsulate functional therapeutics for specific applications. In this study, we focused on utilizing synthetic PEG hydrogel for tissue engineering and antimicrobial activity. The first part of the project aimed to develop a hydrogel system with nanosized micelle incorporated to tune the physical properties of the hydrogel and improve the subsequent gene delivery in the hydrogel for tissue engineering. Although hydrogels serve as a great scaffold for tissue engineering, there are still concerns about infections associated with the application of these hydrogels. Therefore, in the second part of the project, we successfully synthesized a stereocomplex hydrogel with cationic polymer encapsulated for antimicrobial and antibiofilm activities against broad-spectrum microorganism. This study on synthetic PEG-based hydrogel has contributed in developing new strategies for hydrogels application in biomedical applications.