Inventors:
Anna Galperin - Seattle WA, US
Thomas Joseph Long - Seattle WA, US
Buddy D. Ratner - Seattle WA, US
Assignee:
The University of Washington through its Center for Commercialization - Seattle WA
International Classification:
C12N 5/071, C12N 5/0735, C12N 5/0775, C12N 5/0786, C08J 9/00, C08J 9/26
US Classification:
435396, 521149, 521 61, 521 505
Abstract:
The embodiments described herein include porous scaffolds formed from a stimuli-responsive polymer. The stimuli-responsive polymer of the scaffold creates a “smart” scaffold that changes properties in response to an effective stimulus applied to the stimuli-responsive polymer. In a preferred embodiment, an effective stimulus applied to the scaffold initiates a phase transition event in the stimuli-responsive polymer that results in a change in the volume of the pores of the scaffold. The scaffolds can be used to capture appropriately sized objects (e.g., cells) by using the volume-change properties of the pores. Relatedly, the scaffolds can be used as tissue-engineering scaffolds by capturing cells in the pores and introducing the cell-loaded scaffold into a cell-growth environment (e.g., in vivo).