Injectable gel maintains its integrity while inside the body

Gels that can be injected into the body, carrying drugs or cells that regenerate damaged tissue, hold promise for treating many types of disease, including cancer. However, these injectable gels don’t always maintain their solid structure once inside the body.

The team from MIT has now designed an injectable gel that responds to the body’s high temperature by forming a reinforcing network that makes the gel much more durable, allowing it to function over a longer period of time.

The research team, led by Bradley Olsen, an assistant professor of chemical engineering, described the new gels in a recent issue of the journal Advanced Functional Materials. Lead author of the paper is Matthew Glassman, a graduate student in Olsen’s lab. Jacqueline Chan, a former visiting student at MIT, is also an author.

Olsen and his students worked with shear thinning hydrogels, which have the ability to switch between solid-like and liquid-like states. When exposed to mechanical stress — such as being pushed through an injection needle — these gels flow like fluid. But once inside the body, the gels return to their normal solid-like state.