Wanjun Liu, James A Flanders, Long-Hai Wang, Qingsheng Liu, Daniel T Bowers, Kai Wang, Alan Chiu, Xi Wang, Alexander U Ernst, Kaavian Shariati, Julia S Caserto, Benjamin Parker, Daqian Gao, Mitchell D Plesser, Lars G Grunnet, Claude Rescan, Rodrigo Pimentel Carletto, Louise Winkel, Juan M Melero-Martin, Minglin Ma
Encapsulation and transplantation of insulin-producing cells offer a promising curative treatment for type 1 diabetes (T1D) without immunosuppression. However, biomaterials used to encapsulate cells often elicit foreign body responses, leading to cellular overgrowth and deposition of fibrotic tissue, which in turn diminishes mass transfer to and from transplanted cells. Meanwhile, the encapsulation device must be safe, scalable, and ideally retrievable to meet clinical requirements. Here, a durable and safe nanofibrous device coated with a thin and uniform, fibrosis-mitigating, zwitterionically modified alginate hydrogel for encapsulation of islets and stem cell-derived beta (SC-β) cells is reported...
February 2022: Small