Tech Briefs Magazine - May 2024 - 23

This breakthrough discovery, called topological pumping,
could one day lead to advancements in quantum mechanics
and quantum computing by allowing for the development of
higher dimension quantum-mechanical effects.
" Most of the energy - 90 percent - from an earthquake
happens along the surface of the Earth, " Huang said. " Therefore,
by covering a pillow-like structure in this material and
placing it on the Earth's surface underneath a building, it
could potentially help keep the structure from collapsing
during an earthquake. "
The work builds on previous research by Huang and colleagues
which demonstrates how a passive metamaterial could
control the path of sound waves as they travel from one corner
of a material to another.
For more information, contact Eric Stann at StannE@
missouri.edu; 573-882-3346.
Making Hydrogels More Injectable
A set of computational models can predict the material's structure, mechanical properties,
and functional performance outcomes.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
T
o aid the development of gel-like materials - which are
made from microscale building blocks akin to squishy
LEGOs and can be injected into the body to heal injured tissues
or manufacture entirely new tissues - MIT and Harvard
University researchers have created a set of computational
models to predict the material's structure and mechanical
properties, as well as functional performance outcomes.
The aim is to make it easier to design materials that can be
injected for different types of applications, which has been
mainly a trial-and-error process.
" It's really exciting from a material standpoint and from a
clinical application standpoint, " said Ellen Roche, Associate
Professor, MIT. " More broadly, it's a nice example of taking labbased
data and synthesizing it into something usable that can
give you predictive guidelines that could be applied to things
beyond these hydrogels. "
When individual hydrogel blocks are densely compacted
together, they form a gel-like material known as a granular
matrix. These materials can act as a solid or a liquid, which
makes them good candidates for applications such as 3D-bioprinting
engineered tissues. Once injected or implanted into
the body, they could release drugs or help to regenerate injured
tissue.
While working in Harvard Professor Jennifer Lewis' lab, Connor
Verheyen, lead author and grad student in the Harvard-MIT
Program in Health Sciences and Technology, began
trying to figure out how to get these materials to be reliably injectable
- a daunting task.
" That spurred the effort to take the empirical data, turn it
into something that a machine could read and work with, and
then ask it to build a predictive map that we could interrogate
to help us understand what was going on and how to go to the
next step, " he said.
To create the design framework, the team broke the assembly
process down into several stages. In the first stage, the
model analyzed how bioblock properties are affected by the
starting material of the blocks and how they are assembled.
In the next stage, the bioblocks are packed together to form
structures called granular hydrogels. Through their modeling,
the researchers identified several factors that influence
ADHESIVE COMPOUNDS for
SPECIFIC COMPOUNDS OFFER
CHEMICAL RESISTANCE
to acids, bases and salts
ELECTRICAL INSULATION
Volume resistivity, 75°F
1014
to 1015
ohm-cm
THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY
0.5 to 2 W/(m·K)
154 Hobart Street, Hackensack, NJ 07601 USA
+1.201.343.8983 * main@masterbond.com
MIT and Harvard researchers have developed computational models that
can predict the properties of materials made from squishy hydrogel
blocks. (Image: Courtesy of the researchers)
Tech Briefs, May 2024
www.techbriefs.com
www.masterbond.com
23

http://info.hotims.com/86255-766 http://www.techbriefs.com

Tech Briefs Magazine - May 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Tech Briefs Magazine - May 2024