Alison is in the 3rd year of a PhD in bioresponsive materials for sensing applications in the School of Materials at The University of Manchester, having obtained a first class degree in Biomedical Materials Science. In her spare time she enjoys swing dancing and climbing.

Design of hydrogel particles for detection and removal of enzymes

Enzymes play a vital role in the state of healthy and diseased tissues. Elastase is an enzyme that degrades tissue. It is involved in the process of healthy wound healing but is also found over expressed in chronic wounds.

This talk describes the design, and various components of, particles for the detection and removal of elastase. The design consists of four components – a hydrogel particle matrix, a FRET pair – fluorescence of a donor molecule is quenched by an acceptor, a peptide that links the FRET pair and contains an elastase specific cleavable portion, and a charged residue to electro-statically hold elastase in the particles.

Elastase cleaves the peptide, removing the quencher and switching on fluorescence. The charged residues allow elastase to be removed. This leads to the design of particles for the simultaneous diagnosis and treatment of chronic wounds.

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