Title: Reconstructing the Cellular Microenvironment with Synthetic Hydrogels.
When: Friday, 14th June, 2019, at 12:00.
Place: Sala de Conferencias, Módulo 00, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.
Speaker: Aránzazu del Campo, Scientific Director INM-Leibniz Institute for New Materials, Germany.
Our understanding of how cells interact with their microenvironment, and how the microenvironment influences cell fate, depends on our ability to design simple but representative artificial substitutes of the natural milieu. Hydrogel materials decorated with extracellular matrix ligands or with cell membrane receptors, and with mechanical properties resembling those of the natural systems are a reasonable material’s choice. Current challenges in this context are (i) how to mimic the continuous remodeling or the matrix or the natural changes in cell phenotypes with synthetic materials, or (ii) how to integrate, while spatially differentiate, cell-cell and cell-matrix signals at compositional, architectural and mechanical level within the same material. Approaches to face these challenges based on light-resonsive biomaterials and 3D bioprinting will be presented.