Injectable sponge could find use in regenerative medicine

The biocompatible technology, described in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could find use in minimally invasive therapeutic applications, including regenerative medicine.

‘What we’ve created is a three-dimensional structure that you could use to influence the cells in the tissue surrounding it and perhaps promote tissue formation,’ said principal investigator David J Mooney, the Robert P Pinkas Family professor of bioengineering at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and a core faculty member at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at the university.

‘The simplest application is when you want bulking,’ Mooney said in a statement. ‘If you want to introduce some material into the body to replace tissue that’s been lost or that is deficient, this would be ideal. In other situations, you could use it to transplant stem cells if you’re trying to promote tissue regeneration, or you might want to transplant immune cells if you’re looking at immunotherapy.’