Towards clinical translation of 'second-generation' regenerative stroke therapies: hydrogels as game changers?

John D. Totten, Hani Abdullah Alhadrami, Essam Hussain Jiffri, Calum McMullen, F.Philipp Seib, Hilary V. O. Carswell

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Citations (Scopus)
18 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Stroke is an unmet clinical need with a paucity of treatments, at least in part because chronic stroke pathologies are prohibitive to "first-generation" stem cell-based therapies. Hydrogels can remodel the hostile stroke microenvironment to aid endogenous and exogenous regenerative repair processes. However no clinical trials have yet been successfully commissioned for these "second-generation" hydrogel-based therapies for chronic ischemic stroke regeneration. This review recommends a path forward to improve hydrogel technology for future clinical translation for stroke. Specifically, we suggest that a better understanding of human host stroke tissue-hydrogel interactions in addition to the effects of scaling up hydrogel volume to human-sized cavities would help guide translation of these second-generation regenerative stroke therapies.
Original languageEnglish
Number of pages41
JournalTrends in Biotechnology
Early online date20 Nov 2021
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 20 Nov 2021

Keywords

  • stroke
  • brain repair
  • hydrogel matrix
  • biomaterial technology
  • scaffold
  • tissue engineering

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