UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- The ability to create conducting polymer films in a variety of shapes, thicknesses and surface properties rapidly and inexpensively will make growing and testing cells easier and more flexible, according to a team of Penn State bioengineers.
"The ultimate goal of this collaborative project is to be able to create a substrate for growth and manipulation of cells," said Sheereen Majd, assistant professor of bioengineering. "Cells on a surface need to recognize biomolecules like extracellular matrix proteins to be able to adhere and grow. We ultimately would like to be able to use these polymer films to manipulate adhesion, growth, proliferation and migration of cells."
Majd and her team are creating patterned films of conducting polymers on gold substrates by electrodeposition through hydrogel stamps. They report their results today (May 9) in Advanced Materials.
The researchers create their hydrogel stamps from agarose -- a sugar extracted from seaweed -- poured into molds. While most of the current experiments use arrays of dots, because the researchers use molded stamps, a wide variety of shapes -- dots, squares, lines -- are possible.
The stamp is dipped in a solution of monomer and a dopant and placed on the gold surface. An electrical current through the hydrogel and gold polymerizes the monomer and dopant at the surface. If a biomolecule of interest is also included in the stamping solution, it becomes embedded in the polymer film as well.