Animal Free Collagen, Characterisation and Control - From Cells to Gels

Collagen is the focus of a lot of biomedical engineering research, harnessing the structural properties of collagen in applications such as tissue engineering.

A lot of applications use collagen in the form of a hydrogel, with and without chemical cross linkers, where it forms a system of fibrils, trapping an aqueous environment for tissue growth. Recently, novel animal free collagens, including Type I, II and III collagen, have been synthesised. These collagens are found naturally in different tissues of the body.

The research community and medicine are keen to use animal free materials, which reduce disease risk, inconsistency and negate ethical issues (aligning with the principles of the 3Rs).

The project will answer this challenge and develop novel animal free hydrogels with mechanical characteristics that can be tuned for different applications by changing the type of collagen and chemical crosslinkers.

Further novelty and rigour will be achieved by using a multiscale approach combining rheological methods to characterise the gelling of hydrogels alongside bulk scale measurements of the mechanical properties.

Applications towards tissue engineering, additive manufacturing and soft robotics may be exploited with new formulations of gels developed in this project.