Journal of Biotechnology & Biomaterials
Open Access

Abstract

Tissue engineering is a relatively new tool available to scientists, first appearing in the early 1990â��s. It was originally conceived as a potential solution to the lack of availability of donor organs and is now also additionally considered as an alternative strategy to animal testing for drug and chemical safety models. A three dimensional (3D) scaffold provides a support for cellular growth in such a way that specific cells form a 3D matrix of tissue which in turn can be transplanted into a patient to allow regeneration of the specified region. SpheriTech have developed a novel biopolymer which has found many applications, amongst them is the formation of self-assembled macro-porous biodegradable constructs specifically designed to support 3D cell culture. The porosity of the bio-polymer is controlled by self-assembly in such a manner as to accommodate cell and nutrient penetration within. The unique features of the 3D cell culture scaffold developed by the company include the fact that it is composed entirely of naturally occurring components. The main backbone of the polymer is poly-�µ-lysine which is an edible, non-toxic material currently manufactured on multi-ton scale and used predominantly as a preservative in foodstuffs. Poly-�µ-lysine can be readily cross-linked with any multi-functional carboxylic acid and in particular we have found that the naturally occurring bis-carboxylic acids such as sebacic acid and dodecanedioic acid impart advantageous properties on 3D scaffolds. Ultimately the polymer is susceptible to degradation by protease activity to produce lysine and the fatty acid. This new scaffold is being developed for a range of applications including wound dressings, peripheral nerve repair, CNS repair, kidney repair, bone repair and cartilage repair, to name a few. The polymer and these applications will be discussed in detail.

Biography

Donald A Wellings has more than 30 years experience working in blue chip organizations holding senior scientific posts in ICI, Zeneca, Avecia and Polymer Laboratories. More recently he founded Chromatide where he worked as Chief Scientific Officer for 3 years and is credited as the sole Inventor of all of the company’s intellectual property. In 2009 he founded his second company, SpheriTech which has already established a strong IP portfolio. He is an internationally recognized authority on peptide synthesis, polymer design and chromatography. He is the author of numerous texts and book chapters and is the author of ‘A Practical Handbook of Preparative HPLC with a track record of innovation, he is the main inventor on 19 patents and the sole inventor on all patents filed by SpheriTech to-date. Apart from the inventive nature exemplified by published intellectual property he has been instrumental in the concept, design, building and launch of equipment for batch-wise and continuous flow based solid phase synthesis over the last two decades. More recently he has introduced new concepts in biotechnology based applications of continuous reactors which will be published in due course.

Email: don.wellings@spheritech.com