Open PhD position: “3D printing of hyaluronic acid aerogels as on-demand removable wound dressings”

Wound management is nowadays a major health issue. Wound-related health problems will be accentuated in the years to come because of the aging of the population whereby the prevalence of wounds, in particular chronic wounds, will increase. Wound dressings are the most important tool for wound management; they can have various forms ranging from foams to hydrocolloids and hydrogels. Very recently, it has been demonstrated that certain polysaccharide solutions can be used to ‘print’ hydrogels in complex forms, which is particularly useful for wound dressings that often require unique shapes.

The objective of the 3D-AER-HYAL project is the preparation of on-demand removable, hyaluronic acid-based aerogels obtained by additive manufacturing for application as wound dressings which are capable of releasing biologically active agents.

Bio-aerogels are highly porous, nanostructured materials with a large internal surface area; they are obtained via non-toxic processes from solutions and hydrogels of polysaccharides. The project is at the interface of materials science (biobased polymers, aerogels, 3D printing), chemistry (polymer crosslinking) and biomedical applications (wound dressings, controlled release). Hyaluronic acid will be printed into hydrogels using a support bath, which avoids the disadvantages of conventional printing-in-air, including clogging of the printing nozzle and gravity-induced structural collapse during printing. Relevant drugs (e.g. antibiotics) will be incorporated in the aerogels physically via mixing and impregnation. The potential of the bio-aerogels as drug-releasing wound dressings will be evaluated using in vitro and ex vivo models.