Bioactive Superporous Hydrogels with Vascular Channels for Muscle Tissue Engineering

There is a substantial clinical need in both civilian and battlefield injuries for the repair and regeneration of large-volume-loss skeletal muscle tissue injuries. Current standards of care rely on rotational tissue grafts and often result in substantial morbidity, pain, and disfigurement. Luna Innovations Incorporated proposes the development of a hierarchically organized, superporous hydrogel construct with aligned vascular channels. The construct formation will utilize a novel sacrificial template for micropore formation in addition to photomasking for vascular channel formation. The scaffolds will be functionalized with a bioactive glycosaminoglycan capable of recruiting and binding important growth factors, extracellular matrix proteins, and progenitor cells. This functionalization will serve to both promote angiogenesis within the construct channels and induce skeletal muscle regeneration by supporting endogenous progenitor cells. Hydrolytically degradable linkages will be introduced through a copolymer addition and degradation rates will be controlled by the addititive ratio. The developed construct will be biodegradable, biocompatible, hierarchically organized and provide both structural and chemical cues for angiogenesis and skeletal muscle tissue regeneration.