The new material belongs to a family of substances called hydrogels, the essence of life’s ‘squishy’ substances found in all living things, such as cartilage in animals and in plants like seaweed. The properties of hydrogels make them very useful in biomedical research because they can mimic human tissue, allowing cells to grow in a laboratory.
“The material is bioactive, which means that encapsulated cells behave as if they are living in natural tissue,” A/Prof. Kilian says. “I was excited to identify a unique peptide sequence using computational simulations that might form a hydrogel,” says Ms Nguyen. “Natural hydrogels are used all over in society—from food processing to cosmetics—but require harvest from animals which poses ethical concerns,” she says.
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