Ricerc@Sapienza

This work describes the morphological, optical, and thermo-optical properties of a temperature-sensitive hydrogel poly(N-isopropylacrylamide-co-N-isopropylmethacrylamide) [P(NIPAm-co-NIPMAm]) film containing a specific amount of gold nanorods (GNRs). The light-induced thermoplasmonic heating of GNRs is used to control the optical scattering of an initially transparent hydrogel film. A hydrated P(NIPAm-co-NIPMAm) film is optically clear at room temperature.

We investigated the stress response of hydrogels to multiple and consecutive planar extensions using the standard Flory-Rehner thermodynamics. We show explicitly how the stress relaxation at a given extension depends on both the number and magnitude of incremental steps that lead to such extension. These results have the potential to impact the design of hydrogel-based actuators where a prescribed extension can be achieved through several consecutive extensions.

Nowadays, autograft and allograft techniques represent the main solution to improve bone repair. Unfortunately, autograft technique is expensive, invasive and subject to infections and hematoma, frequently affecting both donor sites and surgical sites. A recent advance in tissue engineering is the fabrication of cell-laden hydrogels with custom-made geometry, depending on the clinical case. The use of ECM (Extra-Cellular Matrix)-derived Hydrogels from bone tissue is the new opportunity to obtain good results in bone regeneration.

The effects that an increase of environmental pH has on the triple helix of scleroglucan (Sclg)
and on the Sclg/borax hydrogel are reported. Rheological experiments show that the hydrogel is less
sensitive to pH increase than Sclg alone, while at pH = 14 a dramatic viscosity decrease takes place for
both systems. This effect is evidenced also by the reduced water uptake and anisotropic elongation
detected, at pH = 14, by the swelling behaviour of tablets prepared with the Sclg/borax system.

Hypothesis: Sodium Deoxycholate (NaDC) and Phenylalanine (Phe) are important biological hydrogelators. NaDC hydrogels form by lowering the pH or by increasing the ionic strength. Phe gels form from saturated solution by thermal induction and slow kinetics. The resulting gels hold great potential in medicine and biology as drug carriers and models for fundamental self-assembly in pathological conditions. Based on this background it was hypothesized that a Phe substituted NaDC could provide a molecule with expanded gelling ability, merging those of the precursors.

Since the application of nanotechnology to drug delivery, both polymer-based and lipid-based nanocarriers have demonstrated clinical benefits, improving both drug efficacy and safety. However, to further address the challenges of the drug delivery field, hybrid lipid-polymer nanocomposites have been designed to merge the beneficial features of both polymer-based and lipid-based delivery systems in a single nanocarrier. Within this scenario, this work is aimed at developing novel hybrid vesicles following the recent strategy of modifying the internal structure of liposomes.

In the last decade, the use of microRNA (miRNA) and extracellular vesicle (EV) therapies has emerged as an alternative approach to mitigate the negative
effects of several disease pathologies ranging from cancer to tissue and organ regeneration; however, delivery approaches toward target tissues have not
been optimized. To alleviate these challenges, including rapid diffusion upon injection and susceptibility to degradation, porcine-derived decellularized