Hidrogeles basados en colágeno con potencial aplicación en ingeniería de tejidos

Abstract

Tissue Engineering emerged as a research field to solve problems arising in tissues and organs with the development of scaffolds, in which cell growth and proliferation takes place. Scaffolds are biomaterials with specific properties depending on their application. In this work, collagen-based hydrogels were developed to act as scaffolds with potential application in tissue engineering. To assess their applicability, the influence of different parameters involved in the manufacturing process (pH, gelation time, concentration of raw material, etc.) on the properties of hydrogels was analyzed. A design of experiments was carried out in order to evaluate the combined influence of the different parameters, indicating those that cause a greater influence on the structure of these biomaterials. The different elaborated systems were characterized by means of rheological (strain and frequency sweep tests) and morphological measurements (porosity evaluation and SEM microscopy). The results allowed selecting the most suitable conditions to obtain collagen-based hydrogels.