Smart, Self-Healing Hydrogels Repair Themselves After Sustaining Damage
UC San Diego's Self-Healing, Squishy Hydrogels Joshua Knoff, UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering The ability to heal--to repair oneself repeatedly and thus sustain damage repeatedly--is one of biology's greatest tricks, and one that humans have been trying to replicate in synthetic materials for years. Now, bioengineers at University of California, San Diego, have done so via a hydrogel that could be something of a game-changer in disciplines like medicine and materials science. Hydrogels are semi-solid, gummy-bear-like squishy materials made of chains of hydrophilic polymer molecules. That hydrophilic quality makes them a good analog for natural tissues because, due to their high water content, they tend to mimic the flexibility and other textural qualities of biological media. As such, they are often used in medical applications--as scaffolds for tissue engineering, for instance, or as drug delivery systems--but thus far attempts to make them repair themselves after a cut or tear...