Biomimetic elastomers, 3D printing and their biomedical applications

Owing to their potential of biomimetic mechanical properties, elastomers have been extensively used, and become more and more important in biomedical fields such as medical implants, regenerative medicine, and bioelectronics. In addition to further enhance the common properties of elastomers, it is highly desired to endow elastomers with functionalities such as reprocessability, biomimetic mechanical properties, self-healing ability, bioactivity, and electrical conductivity, which will significantly broaden their applications. The covalent or non-covalent cross-linked structure is the essential factor for the elasticity of elastomers. Traditional elastomers usually compose of single type of cross-linked molecular network, which is difficult to modulate the properties and introduce functionalities. Inspired by the simultaneous existence of multiple cross-linked structures in proteins, we have employed hybrid cross-linking strategy to construct elastomers. Various noncovalent interactions (e.g., hydrogen bonds, cation-π interaction and coordination bonds) and dynamic covalent bonds (e.g. oxime-urethane bonds, urea bonds, disulfide bonds) have been integrated in elastomers. Accordingly, the properties and functionalities of elastomers can be tuned by regulating the types, ratios, and distributions of cross-links. The hybrid cross-linking strategy provides a versatile and effective way to construct diverse functional elastomers for broad applications. In this talk, we present our recent progress on functional elastomers constructed by hybrid cross-linking strategy, including their design, preparation, properties, 3D printed devices and their diverse biomedical applications including bioelectronics, tissue regeneration and treatment of cardiovascular diseases.

Dr. Zhengwei You is a full professor, the Deputy Director of State Key Laboratory of Advanced Fiber Materials and the Head of the Department of Composite Materials at Donghua University. He received his B.Sc. degree from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Ph.D. degree from Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry. He conducted his postdoctoral research at Georgia Institute of Technology and University of Pittsburgh, and served as an innovation manager in Bayer Material Science. As the corresponding author, he has published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers over 70 of which feature are in the prestigious journals with an impact factor above 10, such as Nat. Med., Nat. Commun., Sci. Adv., Adv. Mater., PNAS. He has been granted over 60 patents and received numerous academic distinctions, including Shanghai Leading Talent, Top Ten Outstanding Young Scientific and Technological Contributors of Shanghai (2023), and Taishan Industry Innovation Leading Talent of Shandong Province. As the first contributor, he was awarded the First-Class Prize of Shanghai Natural Science Award, First-Class Natural Science Prize of China National Textile and Apparel Council, First-Class Science and Technology Prize of the Chinese Materials Research Society, and the Gold Medal at the Macao International Innovation & Invention Exhibition.