Annealed Hydrogel Microparticles as Scaffolds for Tissue Repair

Tatiana Segura, Duke University

Abstract:

Injectable materials that can conform to the shape of a desired space are used in a variety of fields including medicine. The ability to fill a tissue defect with an injectable material can be used for example to deliver drugs, augment tissue volume, or promote repair of an injury. This talk will explore the development of injectable materials that are based on assembled particle building blocks, for tissue repair. We find that using microparticle building blocks to build the scaffold generates a porous network by the space left behind between adjacent building blocks. Due to the injectability of this microporous material we have explored its wide applicability to tissue repair applications ranging from skin to brain wounds. We find that in the skin our particle scaffold promotes wound closure and granulation tissue thickness more than widely used polymeric crosslinked hydrogels. In both the brain and the skin our particle scaffolds result in reduced inflammation.

Bio:

Tatiana Segura, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Neurology and Dermatology at Duke University. She received her BS degree in Bioengineering from the University of California Berkeley and her doctorate in Chemical Engineering from Northwestern University working with Lonnie Shea. She joined Jeffrey A. Hubbell’s laboratory for her postdoctoral work. In 2006 she joined the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department at University of California Los Angeles as a tenure track Assistant Professor, a position she secured in 2004 before begining her postdoctoral appointment. In 2012 she received tenure and was promoted to Associate Professor. In 2016 she was promoted to the title of Professor.  She joined the Duke faculty in 2018. Segura has received numerous awards and distinctions during her career, including the 2020 Acta Biomaterialia Silver Medal, a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation, an Outstanding Young Investigator Award from the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy and a National Scientist Development Grant from the American Heart Association. She was also named a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineers in 2017. Prof. Segura has published over 150 peer reviewed papers and reviews and has over 6,000 citations. Her laboratory has been continuously funded with several grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since 2008. She currently serves as a permanent member of the Gene and Drug Delivery Study section at NIH.