ASTM WK21927 to Help Characterize Hydrogels for Medical Purposes
May 29, 2009 // Published as a news service by IHS
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ASTM International is developing ASTM WK21927, a standard designed to help characterize hydrogels for people working in regenerative medicine.
ASTM WK21927 - Guide for Characterization of Hydrogels Used in Regenerative Medicine is under the jurisdiction of Subcommittee F04.42 on Biomaterials and Biomolecules for Tissue Engineered Medical Products (TEMPs) standards, part of ASTM Committee F04 on Medical and Surgical Materials and Devices.
Hydrogels are highly hydrated polymer networks that can be used in the regenerative medicine field as scaffolding for the repair of tissue.
According to Melissa Mather, an F04 member, two factors contribute to the substantial projected growth of hydrogels for medical use:
- Advances in polymer synthesis that enables the manufacture of tailored, environmentally sensitive gels.
- A paradigm shift in tissue engineering toward using the body as a bioreactor to repair itself rather than cultivating tissue in vitro for implantation.
"The move toward using the body as its own bioreactor has resulted in the development of new hydrogel systems, ones that can be injected into wound sites together with cells and growth factors to form self-assembled structures that greatly facilitate healing, the rebuilding of nerves and repair of cartilage," said Mather.
Because hydrogels have a high water content and are mechanically weak, it can be difficult to characterize them in terms of size of the network mesh and to gather data on permeability and mechanical resilience, according to ASTM. Many current characterization approaches use dry samples but the act of drying can alter the structure of a hydrogel in a way that is not easily measured.
"There are a number of techniques available for characterizing hydrogels and for drying them," said Mather. "The proposed new guide will provide a critical overview of these, presenting the information in such a way that it can be easily understood by the multidisciplinary readership active in regenerative medicine."
Interested parties are welcome to join in the development of ASTM WK21927.
"We are particularly keen to hear from anyone working with hydrogels in regenerative medicine but recognize that people from other industry sectors, for example, food science, may also wish to contribute to developing the document," said Mather.
Source: ASTM International.