New 4D hydrogels may help develop tissues that closely resemble their natural counterparts – News-Medical.Net

Tissue engineering has long-depended on geometrically static scaffolds seeded with cells in the lab to create new tissues and even organs.
The scaffolding material -; usually a biodegradable polymer structure -; is supplied with cells and the cells, if supplied with the right nutrients, then develop into tissue as the underlying scaffold biodegrades. But this model ignores the extraordinarily dynamic morphological processes that underlie the natural development of tissues.
Now, researchers at the…

Click here to view the original article.