Mittwoch, 8. August 2012

03.05.2012


Meeting with Leonid Ionov at the Institute for polymer research (IPF):
People: Varsha, Svea, Praveen, Ali, Santiago, Thomas
  • Leonid Ionov works with smart polymers-> stimuli responsive polymers and they do a biomimetic approach and even try to do Origami folding techniques with Polymers.
  • The change in the polymer is mostly due to swelling, how is it possible to engineer the swelling behavior upon specific stimulus-> In IPF they work with thermoresponsive polymers:
    • Temperature low: swelling;
    • temperature high: unswelling
  • Different shapes were already used, for example they were able to create an envelope by a folding of the polymer. Alltogether the sizes are bigger: 10-100 µm
  • One of their research aims is to encapsulate cells into hydrogel and crosslink it. They were able to self-assemble tubes and used microparticles as glue between rods.
  • It is possible to anchor biomolecules inside hydrogels; fluorescent dyes pH sensitive polymers are also possible.
  • IDEA: Put a Kinesin inside a polymer tube
  • Leonid Ionov is willing to help us: he can provide a cryo TEM and a cryo SEM
  • The ratio of swollen and not swollen state of the hydrogel is 1:10-> could be used as gate, but the problem is that the hydrogel gates are not tight! Molecules can diffuse through (slowly)
  • Artificial organ culture with a 3D hydrogel network
  • IDEA: Work with Nanoparticles in the range of 20 nm, not many people will work with that in the competition
  • IDEA: Transition of one shape to another shape with DNA Origami (Aptamers)
  • Two photon polymerization:
  • Encapsulation of cells/bacteria into a hydrogel to create a living biofilm with demanded properties could be possible (e.g. a stent with a biofilm)
  • Summary: Very interesting projects could be performed with polymers, but not really on the nanoscale it´s more on the Micro/milli scal

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