A team of researchers at the universities of Linköping in Sweden and Okayama in Japan claim to have invented a material that can morph into various shapes before hardening that mimics early bone development in humans.
A team of researchers created a simple "microbot" that can simulate bone growth. Credit: Olov Planthaber via University of Linköping
Created using the same materials found in a human skeleton, the material starts soft before reaching the required density, and mimics the process by which bones such as the skull starts out relatively deformable to allow for birth before eventual hardening.
“We want to use this for applications where materials need to have different properties at different points in time", said Edwin Jager, associate professor at the Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology (IFM) at Linköping University.
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"Firstly, the material is soft and flexible, and it is then locked into place when it hardens. This material could be used in, for example, complicated bone fractures. It could also be used in microrobots – these soft microrobots could be injected into the body through a thin syringe, and then they would unfold and develop their own rigid bones”, he added.
Professor Edwin Jager, University of Linköping. Credit: University of Linköping
The idea developed following a meeting with researchers in Japan studying bone development, who discovered a biomolecule that could stimulate bone growth over a short period of time.
This led to the creation of a simple microbot that could form different shapes and harden to replicate a bone. They started with a gel material called alginate. On one side of this a polymer is grown, which becomes electroactive and changes volume when a small voltage is applied, causing the microrobot to bend in a specified direction.
On the other side of the gel, researchers attached biomolecules that allow the material to harden and when exposed to similar conditions to the human body, the material can harden like bone.
The researchers have suggested this new technology for areas such as bone healing, as the bot could manoeuvre its way into fractures and the hardened material could form the bases for new growth, which could reduce the time and pain of bone healing - as tested on chicken bones in trials.
By making patterns in the gel, the material can almost control the motion of the bot and the patterns it will make in the bone when the voltage is applied.
“By controlling how the material turns, we can make the microrobot move in different ways, and also affect how the material unfurls in broken bones", Jager added.
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"We can embed these movements into the material’s structure, making complex programmes for steering these robots unnecessary”.
The team is currently looking into how the tech can work alongside living cells in order to study the biocompatibility of the material.
Should its hitches be ironed out, this could offer a significant medical breakthrough in bone healing and development.
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