Week 4: 

Hello,

This the team has been tirelessly searching for the final materials needed to conduct our first set of trials with the current hydrogel design. So far we have obtained the sodium Alginate compound and the corresponding calcium chloride additive that will prompt the hydrogel structure to cross-link with itself. During our research, we learned of the great financial and timely costs of conducting test trials with growth factors, so in the place of them we have decided to use commercial florescent labeled protein called Albumin Bovine-Fluorescein. Our team sought out this florescent protein to be used as the indicator in our experiment, in the place of growth factors, to demonstrate that our device could hold and release growth factors at a controlled rate. This aspect of our experimental design has changed since we discovered that a group of dyes (fluorescein) that have a significant capacity to bind to proteins (Albumin). We believe that by adding this fluorescent protein in solution would allow for us to measure how well our hydrogel can hold and release protein-based drugs such as growth factors, on a timely manner. We are also currently searching for a suitable space to test our hydrogel device when we load the protein into it as accuracy is key in this project.