Regeneration

Artificially produced nerve conduits are promising alternatives to autologous nerve grafts in the treatment of damaged nerves. In this study, the physiochemical properties of chitosan/poly-ε-caprolactone nerve conduits will be improved by using the chitosan crosslinker genipin.

Worldwide, about 2.5 million people live with the consequences of a traumatic spinal cord injury. At the injured site formation of glia scar tissue prevents the regeneration of nerve cells. To date, complete functional recovery of the spinal cord is impossible, also because the cascade of events that takes place at the injured site is not fully understood yet.

There are various fields of application for chitosan-based hydrogels. Hydrogels can be manufactured by chemical or physical cross-linking. The hydrophilic groups of chitosan enable the absorption of water. Chitosan hydrogels are suitable as scaffold materials for tissue engineering by mimicking the extracellular matrix. Additionally an application as drug delivery system for drugs, protein or growth factors is also possible.[1] In the following, we briefly present a number of publications about the development and application of chitosan hydrogels using chitosans by HMC.

Regenerative medicine is looking for structures to support the self-healing capacities of the human body. The implant scaffolds need to induce cell proliferation and promote reformation of the tissue. To create high-performance implants, adjustable degradation rates of the biomaterials, interconnected pores and functional surfaces are important. Due to their unique characteristics, chitosans are perfectly suitable to fulfill those requirements of regenerative medizin, due to their unique characteristics. In the following, we want to present you two highly interesting studies from research in this field.

This month we deal with chitosan for skin tissue engineering. In 2016, 129 articles about “chitosan” and “tissue engineering” were published. Most publications were written by researchers from China (42 articles), India (14) and the United States (14).

In April 2016, 268 publications about chitosan were released. In addition to China (52) and the United States (25), Brazil (15) is on the third place of nations with the most publications. The following studies deal with chitosan as drug delivery system to support regeneration of dermal tissue or articular cartilage.

In September and October, 276 chitosan-related articles have been released. The main topics addressed chitosan in evaluation studies, pharmaceutical preparations, nanoparticles and tissue engineering. The highest number of publications was performed by the leading nations China (73 articles), USA (28) and India (22). German scientists published 8 articles, placing them in the top-ten list.

In the summer month July and August 2014, 246 articles about chitosan and chitosan derivatives have been published. These articles were mainly published by scientists from China (59 articles), USA (31) and India (30). The top terms in this month addressed nanoparticles, pharmaceutical preparations and animal studies.

Besides interesting conferences like the ESB Meeting (European Conference on Biomaterials) from September 11 to 15 in Tampere, Finland many international articles about the application of chitosan appeared. As usual, some interesting papers will be presented.

Youngnam Cho and Richard Borgens of the Purdue University in West Lafayette, USA found, what researchers were looking for since many years: a medium to medicate damaged nerve cells in the spinal cord. Chitosan is the new white hope in research and for concerned persons.