Polymeric materials for neovascularization

Revascularization therapies have emerged as a promising strategy to treat various acute and chronic wounds, cardiovascular diseases, and tissue defects. It is common to either administer proangiogenic growth factors, such as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), or transplant cells that endogenously express multiple proangiogenic factors. Additionally, these strategies utilize a wide variety of polymeric systems, including hydrogels and biodegradable plastics, to deliver proangiogenic factors in a sophisticated manner to maintain a sustained proangiogenic environment. Despite some impressive results in rebuilding vascular networks, it is still a challenging task to engineer mature and functional neovessels in target tissues, because of the increasing complexities involved with neovascularization applications. To resolve these challenges, this work aims to design a wide variety of proangiogenic biomaterial systems with tunable properties used for neovascularization therapies. This thesis describes the design of several biomaterial systems used for the delivery of proangiogenic factors in neovascularization therapies, including: an electrospun/electrosprayed biodegradable plastic patch used for directional blood vessel growth (Chapter 2), an alginate-g-pyrrole hydrogel system that biochemically stimulates cellular endogenous proangiogenic factor expression (Chapter 3), an enzyme-catalyzed alginate-g-pyrrole hydrogel system for VEGF delivery (Chapter 4), an enzyme-activated alginate-g-pyrrole hydrogel system with systematically controllable electrical and mechanical properties (Chapter 5), and an alginate-g-pyrrole hydrogel that enables the decoupled control of electrical conductivity and mechanical rigidity and is use to electrically stimulate cellular endogenous proangiogenic factor expression (Chapter 6). Overall, the biomaterial systems developed in this thesis will be broadly useful for improving the quality of a wide array of molecular and cellular based revascularization therapies.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Chemical Engineering

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2013

Author dc:creator

• DeVolder, Ross J.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Kong, Hyun Joon
• Hsia, K. Jimmy
• Boppart, Stephen A.
• Rao, Christopher V.
• Schroeder, Charles M.

• Angiogenesis
• biomaterial
• hydrogel

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2013 Ross DeVolder

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/44267

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/44267