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Date of Award

Spring 2025

Document Type

Masters Thesis

Department or Program Affiliation

Chemistry

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Chemistry

First Advisor

Murphy, Amanda R.

Second Advisor

Vyvyan, James R.

Third Advisor

Antos, John M.

Abstract

Self-healing hydrogels have numerous biomedical applications such as wound healing, drug delivery, and tissue engineering. Thiol-silk hydrogels have been previously investigated due to the stability, durability, and high mechanical strength of silk. However, silk hydrogel scaffolding is brittle and limited in function in a 3D cell culture environment. Chitosan is a polysaccharide derived from chitin found in insect, shellfish, and crustacean exoskeletons. Chitosan has high antibacterial properties and hemostatic potential, but poor mechanical strength and low solubility at neutral pH. Blending chitosan with silk hydrogels is anticipated to improve the flexibility and mechanical properties over silk alone. The Murphy group previously developed a procedure for creating thiol-modified silk to form a hydrogel via disulfide crosslinking. Here, this strategy was adapted for chitosan, which should allow uniform crosslinking to occur between thiol-silk and thiol-chitosan. The addition of thiols to the polymers was monitored with 1H NMR spectroscopy. Other characterization techniques used were UV-Vis spectroscopy and rheology, which verified that the reaction occurred as expected and compared the properties of the combined hydrogels to the plain thiol silk or thiol chitosan gels. This work aims to produce a reproducible protocol that combines thiol-silk and thiol-chitosan into a more mechanically robust self-healing hydrogel than a gel comprised of either polymer alone.

Type

Text

Keywords

Silk, chitosan, tyrosine, disulfide, thiol, crosslinking, blended, hydrogel

Publisher

Western Washington University

OCLC Number

1521986769

Subject – LCSH

Silk; Chitosan; Colloids; Tyrosine; Thiols; Crosslinking (Polymerization)

Format

application/pdf

Genre/Form

masters theses

Language

English

Rights

Copying of this document in whole or in part is allowable only for scholarly purposes. It is understood, however, that any copying or publication of this document for commercial purposes, or for financial gain, shall not be allowed without the author’s written permission.

Rights Statement

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/

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