Sharif Digital Repository

Osteoarthritis has always been one of the most common diseases in middle age because it causes severe pain and inflammation in the joints of the body. Cartilage tissue does not have the ability to repair itself. For this reason, fabricating and designing the most efficient, least-expensive, and most convenient methods for the treatment of cartilage defects is always an important issue. Today, there are surgical and injectable methods to relieve pain and initiate the body's natural healing response. But due to the many disadvantages and limitations of these methods, tissue engineering science has turned to modifying these methods or providing new methods. One of these methods is the use of... 

Wound healing by engineered scaffolds is a new step in bio-technology and medical studies in recent years. The goal of the current study is to propose a novel structure for a tissue-engineered scaffold to be used in wound healing. Influenced from the multi-layered structure of natural human skin, the fabricated scaffold consists of two layers to maximize similarity with natural skin. This product is comprised of an electrospun layer made of polycaprolactone and polyvinyl alcohol and a hydrogel layer made of chitosan and gelatin. In order to form a porous medium in the hydrogel layer, freeze-gelation was used instead of freeze drying. The evaluation of fabricated scaffolds was performed by... 

3D bioprinting is an additive manufacturing method that facilitates the deposition of the desired cells and biomaterials at any pre-defined location. This technique also enables control over the internal structure and external dimensions of printed constructs. Among various biomaterials used as bioinks, the bioinks derived from decellularized extracellular matrixes (dECMs) have attracted significant attention due to their bioactivity and being a rich source of biochemical cues. Here in this study, the decellularized amnion membrane (dAM) has been selected as the main component of the bioink formulation because of its biocompatibility, low immunogenicity, antibacterial property, abundance,... 

This thesis focuses on the preparation and super-swelling behavior of four highly porous hydrogels: 1. Firstly, we have developed a collagen-based highly porous hydrogel by neutralizing the grafted poly(acrylamide-co-acrylic acid) after gel formation. Systematically, the certain variables of the graft copolymerization were optimized to achieve maximum swelling capacity. Morphology of the samples was examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and was shown the pores were induced into the hydrogel by water evaporation resulting from neutralization process. The absorbency under load (AUL) and centrifuge retention capacity (CRC) were measured. The synthesized hydrogel exhibited a... 

Graphene، a molecular single layer of graphite، has tremendous applications in materials science for the development of nanocomposites، tissue engineering and supercapacitors. Graphene application and its developing applications depend on its essential properties such as excellent mechanical and thermal properties. Accordingly، investigation on graphene has drawn significant attention to itself. Hence، exploitation of these important properties including the induction of graphene sheets in polymer matrix seems to be essential. In the present survey، salep، a biodegradable polysaccharide، has been used for either the reduction of graphene oxide or functionalization of graphene. Then، reduced... 

In this study, a new bioink was introduced for the production of tubular tissue structures for cardiac tissue engineering by bioprinter using the FRESH (Freeform Reversible Embedding of Suspended Hydrogels) method. The novel bioink that we used was a combination of cardiac extracellular matrix (cECM) and oxidized alginate. The cardiac extracellular matrix was used to increase the biomimetic of the printed structures to the actual tissue of the body, and also to create sites for cell adhesion, and to improve cell growth and survival. We used alginate oxide (oxidation degree: 5%) to increase the mechanical properties of the tissue. Alginate oxidation has been due to extracellular matrix (ECM)... 

In the past decades, hydrogels have been used as an adsorbent with high potential to remove pollutants in water. Hydrogels are three-dimensional polymer networks that have the ability to absorb and store water and water-soluble compounds due to the presence of hydrophilic functional groups in their structure. Different particles with unique characteristics can be used to increase the efficiency of hydrogel absorption. Based on the type of pollutant, hydrogels are divided into three different forms, including particles, films and nanocomposites. In this research, the absorption effect of metal cations as well as the absorption kinetics of polyvinyl pyrrolidine-based hydrogels, sodium... 

Pulp necrosis in immature teeth disrupts root development and predisposes roots to fracture as a consequence of their thin walls and open apices. Regenerative endodontics is a developing treatment modality whereby necrotic pulps are replaced with newly formed healthy pulp-like tissue. Many clinical studies have demonstrated the potential of this strategy to stimulate root maturation and apical root-end closure. However, clinical outcomes are patient-dependent and unpredictable. The development of predictable clinical protocols is achieved through the interplay of the three classical elements of tissue engineering, namely, stem cells, signaling molecules, and scaffolds. Scaffolds provide... 

Hemophilia is a group of hereditary genetic disorders that impair the body's ability to control blood clotting due to the lack of coagulation factors. Frequent joint and soft tissue bleeding is one the most common problems amongst these patients which can become progressively destructive for cartilage tissue in case of the late treatment. In this work, injectable PEG-based hydrogel nanocomposites with mechanical and structural properties close to cartilage tissue were fabricated. First, primary copolymers with PEG blocks of 600 g.mol-1 and 900 g.mol-1 without and with 2.5 wt.% Laponite nanoclay were synthesized by two-step thermal poly (amic acid) process. After polymer purification,... 

"osteoarthritis" is one of the most common joint diseases. This disease has a close relationship with factors such as aging, weight gain, genetics, mechanical pressures, and severe injuries. Although the mechanism of this disease is not fully understood, inflammation is one of the main causes of its exacerbation and progression. controlling inflammation can greatly help in controlling the disease. One of the common treatment methods for osteoarthritis is intra-articular injection of hyaluronic acid and triamcinolone as anti-inflammatory drug. Hyaluronic acid is the main component of synovial fluid, with its viscosupplementation property, prevents bones from rubbing against each other in the... 

Nerve damage is one of the factors affecting the quality of life of patients. The nervous system does not have the ability to repair large injuries, and autologous transplantation, which is the standard treatment method for nerve injuries, is faced with a shortage of donors and a decrease in the function of the donor site. Tissue engineering hydrogels, due to their similarity to the natural tissue of the stomatal body, are a hope for the repair of nerve tissue. In this research, an injectable, minimally invasive and temperature-sensitive hydrogel based on chitosan-etaglycerophosphate-sodium hydrogen carbonate salt or trisodium phosphate salt containing aligned nanofibers made of gelatin and... 

Myocardial infarction (MI) is one of the diseases caused by the temporary or permanent cramp of major coronary arteries. Due to this blockage, blood flow to the heart's myocardial tissue is greatly reduced and finally the person suffered from a Heart stroke (HS). Heart tissue engineering is a promising approach, based on the combination of cells and suitable biomaterials to develop and create heart-like biological substitutes. Since high cardiac cell density, providing metabolic needs like oxygen and nutrients was a challenge. So creation of blood vessel networks within this type of designed tissue has been considered very much.The purpose of this project is to construct scaffolds with... 

Myocardial Infarction occurs due to sudden blockage in a coronary artery and causes necrosis of myocardial tissue. Since myocardium is unable to self-regenerate, cardiac tissue engineering has become a promising therapeutic approach for MI treatment by restoring heart function via combination of cells, biomaterials and signaling factors. For this purpose, myocardial extracellular matrix (ECM) is an attractive biomaterial providing better biomimetic for cultured cells. In this project, we synthesized an in situ forming hydrogel derived from myocardial ECM and for improving mechanical and electrical properties of ECM hydrogel we added oxidized alginate (OA) with 5% oxidation degree and APTMS... 

The electric field induced response of a charged droplet in an uncharged gel is calculated theoretically. For modeling, the gel is considered as a soft porous solid that is saturated with a Newtonian electrolyte and modeled as a continuum that contains 3 phases: a porous, soft and compressible solid, an incompressible Newtonian fluid and the ions inside fluid. Droplet is modeled as a charged incompressible Newtonian fluid immiscible with the gel. The droplet-gel interface is considered as a surface with electrostatic potential ζ . After obtaining governing equations, they solved by using perturbation methodology and linear superposition. Boundary conditions, especially at the droplet-gel... 

Cardiovascular disease is responsible for a majority of health problem in developing countries. Heart diseases are the leading cause of death in the United State with approximately 40% of the death occurs by heart failures and coronary artery defects. Myocardial infarction is one of the diseases that occurs by coronay artery blockage. Cardiac tissue engineering (CTE) is an emerging field that holds great promise towards the development of innovative treatment strategies for heart disease. There are two common scaffolds for CTE, electrospun fiber mats and hydrogels. Although fibers are known as 3D environment for cells, they actually act as a 2D surface, because of lack of cell infilteration.... 

Today, catalysts have shown the growing applications in chemical industries especially for drug synthesis. Using immobilized heterogeneous catalysts is a sensible way to benefit from advantages of both heterogeneous and homogeneous catalysts. In this regards, homogeneous catalysts are immobilized on to a solid support through various methods. However, low loading amount of homogenous part and subsequently insufficient catalytic activity are main limitations of immobilized heterogeneous catalysts. For this reason, polymeric supports have been introduced to immobilize metal ions or nanoparticles. These polymeric supports not only possess advantages such as anti-corrosive properties, simple... 

In this work, the mechanical behavior of smart hydrogels is studied for temperature sensitive and, pH and temperature sensitive ones. First, an equilibrium model is presented for the temperature sensitive hydrogles which is continuous and numerically stable especially in the vicinity of the phase transition temperature. The model results are validated through comparing them with the experimental data available in the literature. The model results are in good agreement with those of experiments especially for hydrogels with high cross-linking density. Then, the model is implemented in a finite element framework by which some homogeneous and inhomogeneous problems are numerically solved.... 

Emission of CO2 and its diffusion into atmosphere is associated with negative effects on the environmental such as Green House Gases effect. Various techniques of CO2 Capture in energy conversion and processing plant are investigated. A method of CO2 Capture could be based on utilization of solar energy for producing methanol. Basic design of such a system and feasibility analysis of developing that system has been considered on the subject of the present research work. Basic design and commercial feasibility of the system producing methanol through capturing CO2 from exhaust gases of a power plant and hydrogen produced by using solar energy have done such an integrated system. The main... 

Nowadays, water pollution and water sources decreasion, is one of the important issues of our world. Treatment of polluted water and wastewater and recycling of those to industries and common uses, is very necessary. Dyes, is one of the biggest parts of water pollutants, especially, in textile plants. There are some ways for dye removal, in the industries; including biological, chemical and physical methods. Among of these methods, physical removal of dyes through adsorption (with Activated Carbon or other adsorbents), is very popular. Hydrogels are three-dimensional hydrophilic polymer networks, introducing very good swelling rate, mechanical properties and pollutants adsorption. In this...