Delivering Medicines in a Controlled Manner Over an Extended Period of Time Using Degradable Hydrogels

SLU ID 19-011 | Design of Bio-compatible Crosslinkers to Tune Degradation of Polyethylene Glycol Hydrogels

Background

A hydrogel is a network of polymer chains that have a tendency to mix with or dissolve in water. Interest in hydrogels has been increasing because they are not harmful to living tissue and have an ability to mimic soft biological tissue. Biodegradable hydrogels are of particular interest for many medical applications because they can be used to control the release of encapsulated molecules over an extended period of time. This can also eliminate the need to implant and remove medical devices from the body. As such, there is a growing demand for hydrogels with tunable degradability.

Overview

Researchers at Saint Louis University have developed hydrolytically degradable polyethylene glycol (PEG) crosslinkers to control the degradation of PEG hydrogels. Degradation rates can span from hours to months.

Benefits

The potential benefits of this technology include:

• Minimize the harshness of preparation conditions

• Minimize acidic degradation of products

• Increase suitability for cell encapsulation

• Minimize protein activity loss upon encapsulation

• Minimize patient inflammation caused by drug delivery mechanisms

• Increase degradability of drug delivery mechanisms

• Increase degradation times from hours to months

• Increase tunability of degradation for drug delivery mechanisms

Applications

Potential applications of this technology include:

• Delivery of localized proteins.

• Delivery of biologics.

• Delivery of medications to treat mental illness.

Opportunity

Saint Louis University is seeking partners to further develop and commercialize this technology.