Biocompatible liquid-crystal elastomers mimic the intervertebral disc

Body‐temperature shape‐shifting liquid crystal elastomers

“…LCE with very similar constituents and fabrication method has been proven to be non-cytotoxic via in vitro studies 3 and biocompatible via in vivo study. 19 The previously studied LCE also showed minimal swelling when exposed to the physiological condition. 19 The LCE discussed in the current study also expected to be biocompatible, as only new constituent PEGDA is reported to be cytocompatible.…”

“…19 The previously studied LCE also showed minimal swelling when exposed to the physiological condition. 19 The LCE discussed in the current study also expected to be biocompatible, as only new constituent PEGDA is reported to be cytocompatible. 41,47 The partial substitution of the rigid mesogens with the flexible backbone, at least up to 80% substitution studied in this work, did not completely diminish the liquid crystalline order, as can be seen from the POM images ( Figure 3).…”

“…A reversible phase transition occurs between monodomain-nematic and isotropic LCE by heating and cooling. The schematics in this figure are adapted from Shaha et al, 2020 19 . LCE, liquid crystal elastomers [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com] chemicals were obtained commercially and used without additional processing.…”

“…10,11 Additionally, LCEs are proposed for biomedical applications such as artificial muscle, [12][13][14] scaffolds for tissue engineering, 15 drugdelivery vehicles, 16 vascular implants, 17 interbody fusion cages 18 and synthetic intervertebral disc. 19 However, the proposed biomedical applications mostly focused on either the non-actuation behavior or externally controlled shape-activation.…”

Mechanically tunable elastomer and cellulose nanocrystal composites as scaffolds for in vitro cell studies

“…In addition, we demonstrate that when used in combination with the salt-leaching method, this approach rapidly and efficiently results in a homogeneous, highly porous, interconnected architecture with 250 μm pore size that permits cell infiltration and proliferation. 79,80,81 Native CNCs are mechanically strong, with axial elastic moduli varying from 110 to 220 GPa and tensile strengths ranging from 7.5 to 7.7 GPa, 82,83,84,85,86 and this strength derives from their structure, namely microfibrils held together by hydrogen bonding. Considering this, we added CNCs to our 6A-PCL as reinforcement nanofiller to produce scaffold architectures with stiffer mechanical properties.…”