Melting point
A polymer melting in the human body has been developed
Anton Kurbatov, Indicator
Scientists from Russia and the USA have developed a polymer material that changes its aggregate state from solid to liquid at the temperature of the human body. It can become an "ideal implant". The study is published in the journal Advanced Materials (Zhang et al., Tissue‐Adaptive Materials with Independently Regulated Modulus and Transition Temperature).
"Earlier we showed that our polymers can reproduce the mechanical behavior of living tissues, and they can be programmed. We can reproduce any curve corresponding to the deformation of living tissues. That is, our polymers stretch to the desired limit and then become much stronger. And now we have added another functionality to these systems. Now our “smart” polymers react to another factor – temperature. They are solid at room temperature, but upon contact with a living body (in this work – at 37 ° C) they turn into a liquid. Due to this phase transition during implantation, polymers can spread and fill cavities in the body, creating an implant of ideal shape," said Dmitry Ivanov, one of the authors of the work, professor of the Faculty of Fundamental Physical and Chemical Engineering of Lomonosov Moscow State University.
The ideal shape is achieved due to the fact that the connections between the side chains of the brush-like polymer meshes that it consists of collapse in the polymer. These side chains are able to crystallize, creating a solid phase. In this way, it is possible to obtain, for example, a needle that will be injected into the patient's body. And since scientists have chosen the melting point of the brushes so that it corresponds to the normal temperature of the human body, after the needle is inserted, it will melt and a liquid capable of filling the cavities will be obtained.
According to scientists, the temperature of the phase transition can be selected with amazing accuracy. It can range from room temperature to 50-60°C. Researchers in their work focused on the temperature of the human body, but this method can also be used for animals with a different body temperature, changing the threshold of transition to another state.
Now scientists want to understand how the degree of influence of brush density and branching of hairs on the speed of phase transition is related. "We are currently conducting an experiment at the synchrotron in Grenoble, where we began to study the details of the phase transition using X–ray diffraction analysis," Ivanov said.
Scientists note that another important property is that during crystallization, a medicine can be placed in a brush polymer needle. And when the needle begins to dissolve, medicinal substances will be released from it. It can be used in medicine. "Our materials are quite multifaceted. We can create polymer meshes from these brushes. And depending on the density of the brushes, we can change parameters such as the rate of release of substances embedded in the structure of our polymer crystal," Ivanov stressed.
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