Injectable sponge can deliver drug, cells

CAMBRIDGE, MA – Harvard bioengineers have developed a gel-based sponge that can deliver drugs or stem cells. The sponge can be molded into any shape, compressed to a fraction of its size, and delivered via injection. It pops back to its original shape once inside the body, and gradually releases the drugs or cells it carries, before degrading safely.

“What we’ve created is a three-dimensional structure that you could use to influence the cells in the tissue surrounding it and perhaps promote tissue formation,” explains principal investigator David J. Mooney, Robert P. Pinkas Family Professor of Bioengineering at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and a Core Faculty Member at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard.

The injectable sponge consists primarily of alginate, a seaweed-based jelly. Its networks of large pores allow liquids and large molecules to easily flow through it. Mooney’s team demonstrated that live cells can be attached to the walls of this network, and the sponge itself can hold large and small proteins and drugs. The team has also demonstrated that the cells and molecules can be delivered intact along with the sponge, through a small-bore needle.