A porous lignin-containing hydrogel was developed for dye removal via graft copolymerization of acetic acid lignin (AAL) and acrylamide (AAm), in the presence of ethyleneglycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) as a crosslinker and H2O2 as an initiator. AAL was characterized by FT-IR and TGA. After being washed to remove impurities, the hydrogel was characterized by FT-IR, TGA, SEM, and swelling ratio. FT...

Gastrointestinal (GI) and genitourinary (GU) toxicity was assessed during and after conventional IMRT in 21 low to intermediate risk cancer patients that had received an absorbable hydrogel spacer between the prostate and the rectum. The transperineal hydrogel injection resulted in the creation of 11.5 mm space between the prostate and rectum; space that was not decreased throughout radiotherap...

Study Objective. To evaluate the space creation, maintenance and absorption of an absorbable hydrogel injected into the perirectal space of patients prior to undergoing prostate radiotherapy. Design. CT or MR imaging performed before hydrogel application (Baseline), one week after hydrogel application, following 8 weeks of IMRT (78Gy total) and then again 6 months following implantation. Settin...

background: the excellent biocompatibility, biodegradability and biological properties of the hydrogels, fabricated using natural polymers, especially polysaccharides, are very advantageous for biomedical applications. gum tragacanth (gt) is a heterogeneous highly branched anionic polysaccharide, which has been used extensively in food and pharmaceutical industries. despite,  its desirable prop...

We report on the synthesis and the mechanical characterization of an alginate-collagen fibril composite hydrogel. Native type I collagen fibrils were used to synthesize the fibrous composite hydrogel. We characterized the mechanical properties of the fabricated fibrous hydrogel using tensile testing; rheometry and atomic force microscope (AFM)-based nanoindentation experiments. The results show...

A hybrid carbon-dot (C-dot)–hydrogel matrix was constructed and employed for detection of bacteria. The transduction mechanism is novel, based upon cleavage of ester bonds within the hydrogel scaffold by bacterially-secreted esterases; the ensuing fluidization of the hydrogel resulted in aggregation of the embedded C-dots and consequent quenching of their fluorescence. We show that the C-dot–hy...

objective: the incidence of heart valve disease is increasing worldwide and the number of heart valve replacements is expected to increase in the future. by mimicking the main tissue structures and properties of heart valve, tissue engineering offers new options for the replacements. applying an appropriate scaffold in fabricating tissue-engineered heart valves (tehvs) is of importance since it...

Amyloid-like protein nanofibers were assembled in vitro using a recombinant protein fusion, with yeast Sup35 and human SSB/La proteins as assembly units, where the length of the nanofibers was mostly between 100 and 400 nm. The protein nanofibers, hereafter referred to as Sup35-based protein nanofiber probes (SuPNPs), were used to sensitively detect anti-SSB/La antibodies [Sjögren's syndrome (S...

A novel approach was developed to prepare a superporous hydrogel with superior mechanical and elastic properties. According to this method, a synthetic monomer was polymerized and crosslinked in the presence of a water-soluble alginate polymer. Later in the process, the alginate part of the synthesized hydrogel was treated with metal cations, which resulted in a hydrogel hybrid with an interpen...