Collagen sponges are widely used in biomedical research. They can be loaded with different drugs, such as growth factors, and they are easy to produce and manufacture, easy to manipulate for desired characteristics, and versatile for use in clinical applications. Current methods for characterizing collagen sponges provide widely accepted data and are, more often than not, destructive to the collagen samples, rendering each sample useful for only one data point in an experiment. The goal of this project was to correlate benchtop degradation measurements with quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data. Collagen sponges were degraded in vitro and analyzed using change in dry mass and a ninhydrin assay as well as, MRI. Benchtop methods showed that longer degradation times resulted in increased mass loss. The results of this study suggest that MRI is a viable method to evaluate the degradation extent of collagen sponges.

Creator

• Desi, Laura
• Howes, Stuart
• Corsetto, Laura
• Russo, Mark

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Identifier

• 05D358M

Advisor

• Sotak, Christopher H.
• Pins, George D

Year

• 2005

Date created

• 2005-04-28

Resource type

• Major Qualifying Project

Major

• Biomedical Engineering

Rights statement

• In Copyright

Last modified

• 2023-06-28