Urea based gelator as a scaffold for cells in tissue engineering

During these last few decades the new endeavor of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine has developed.[1] Herein the regeneration or even full substitution of damaged tissue is contemplated. Recently a lot of interest has been invested in the use of hydrogels as scaffolds in the field of regenerative medicine.[2] The use of these scaffolds can be divided in three different categories: space filling agents, bioactive molecule delivery and cell\tissue delivery. Currently the hydrogels that are being used for these scaffolds are mainly polymer based, although a lot of research has been done on the use of self-assembling peptide hydrogels in the application.[3] When looking at the field of gelators in general the emergence of an interesting group of small molecules should be noted, the low molecular weight gelators (LMWG). Interest in these LMWG exploded in the beginning of the 90’s of last century.[4] The gels of some of these LMWG are considered to be smart materials, i.e. materials that are responsive to external stimuli. The link between tissue engineering and LMWG has often been made, but still most of the LMWG that have been used in tissue engineering are peptide based.[5] These peptide based gelators often have an elaborate synthesis, limiting the scalability. Because of the large potential market for these scaffolds, an easily scalable and cheap synthesis of scaffolds is highly desired. In this work we will describe the use of a new LMWG as a scaffold for cells and its use in tissue engineering. The gelator proposed in this work has been successfully synthesized using robust and easily scalable methodology. To empathize the green industrial potential the synthesis has been done in neat conditions in a ball milling reactor. The gelating ability of the compound was tested using standard gelation test procedures, which resulted in gel formation. The material properties of the gels were further characterized and the gels were tested on biocompatibility. [1] Berthiaume, F., Maguire, T. J., Yarmush, M. L., Annu. Rev. Chem. Biomol. Eng. 2 (2011) 403–30. [2] Drury, J. L., Mooney, D. J., Biomaterials. 24 (2003) 4337-4351. [3] Gazit, E., Chem. Soc. Rev., 36 (2007) 1263-1269. [4] Weiss, R. G., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 136 (2014) 7519-7530. [5] Hirst, A. R., Escuder, B., Miravet, J. F., Smith, D. K., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 47 (2008) 8002-8018.status: publishe