High-tech material helps ‘healing cells’ repair tissue inside the body

In 10 seconds? In a breakthrough in tissue healing and bioengineering, researchers have created a self-healing ‘hydrogel’ that can safely deliver tissue-healing progenitor epithelial cells to locations in the body, so they can repair damage by growing into tissue.

Was this not possible before? Up to a point - scientists have been experimenting with the precise delivery of ‘healing cells’ inside the body to sites in need of repair. But they had a problem: most of the cells died in transit. So, to protect their precious cargo in harsh body conditions they thought of using degradable alginate hydrogels as delivery vehicles.