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Injectable Gel Speeds Up Recovery of Mechanically Damaged Muscles

Work done in the lab of Dr. Santosh K. Misra at the Department of Biological Sciences & Bioengineering, IIT Kanpur

About author

Niranjan Chatterjee

Niranjan Chatterjee completed his master’s degree in Human physiology from Vidyasagar University, Midnapore, West Bengal, India. Currently he is pursuing his Ph.D. degree at the department of Biological Sciences & Bioengineering, IIT Kanpur under the supervision of Prof. Santosh K. Misra from 2019. His research area primarily focused on developing advanced biomaterial systems for the therapy and diagnosis of skeletal muscle damage. He also got training on developing nanomaterials based bioimaging probes and varieties of drug delivery platforms for multiple biological applications.

Interview

How would you explain your research outcomes to the non-scientific community?

We are aware of skeletal muscle as a major organ of the human body involved in our all-voluntary physical activities. It is generally exposed to multiple types of injuries during several causal and accidental events like road accidents, high intensity athletic activities, battlefield activities of soldiers, etc. These activities result in compromise of regenerating ability of muscle stem cells due to excessive muscle loss and disrupts the structural integrity of muscle fibers. Most of the conventional therapeutic approaches are found to be inadequate to overcome this widely occurring problem. To overcome the disadvantages e.g., longer duration and inefficient structural recovery of damaged muscle of conventional treatments and to treat the muscle damage more effectively, we have developed an advanced biomaterial system, MusCAMLR, using a carbon material incorporated hydrogel. The name MusCAMLR comes from musculo responsive polymer−carbon composite for assisting myotubular regeneration which clearly dictates the key features of the developed system. MusCAMLR is a polymer carbon composite which is responsive to the physiological environment of skeletal muscle and capable of supporting the regeneration of muscle cells. MusCAMLR inculcates muscle-like arrangement and mechanical compatibility in physiological condition with muscle cells, which ultimately confers its potential to support the regeneration of muscle cells. Further, a mechanically damaged muscle in rat model was developed to validate the efficiency of MusCAMLR. We observed that MusCAMLR is capable of producing structural recovery of mechanically damaged muscles within a very short period of time of around three days which generally takes a few weeks by conventional methods.

Intramuscular injection of nanosized carbon particle enforced MusCAMLR recovers the mechanically damaged skeletal muscles presumably by mechanical support and muscle stem cell regeneration. Image Created with BioRender.com.
Intramuscular injection of nanosized carbon particle enforced MusCAMLR recovers the mechanically damaged skeletal muscles presumably by mechanical support and muscle stem cell regeneration. Image Created with BioRender.com.

How do these findings contribute to your research area?

To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the very few studies revealing that the selective control of gelation property of a hydrogel using nano sized carbon particles can provide therapeutic benefit to the mechanically damaged skeletal muscles. We believe this will help other researchers in the field to develop better non-drug therapeutic alternatives to treat more aggressively damaged skeletal muscle and other related diseases, as well.

“This is one of the very few studies revealing that the selective control of gelation property of a hydrogel using nano sized carbon particles can provide therapeutic benefit to the mechanically damaged skeletal muscles.”

What was the exciting moment during your research?

Although I enjoyed all the experiments of this project, two of the project components were very interesting to execute. First, optimizing the composition of MusCAMLR to bring its properties close to skeletal muscles and secondly, developing a mechanically damaged animal skeletal muscle model which represents high similarity with the real scenario of mechanically damaged muscles.

What do you hope to do next?

Currently my primary research aim is to find innovative solutions for the therapy of more destructive skeletal muscle damage. We are trying to further refine MusCAMLR by incorporating other modifications for this purpose.

Where do you seek scientific inspiration from?

I vividly remember my 10+2 standard classes when one of my respected teachers Mr. Jyoti Prakash Banerjee used to teach us biology. His way of teaching and explaining biology inspired me to take Biology as the main subject during B.Sc. and M.Sc. and paved the way to reach up to research level. My understanding of research, e.g., thinking about exciting ideas, performing the right set experiments, and expressing the outcomes of investigations, were built up by my mentor Prof. Santosh K. Misra. I feel very privileged to grow as a researcher in the field of interdisciplinary biology through his guidance. 

How do you intend to help Indian science improve?

As a researcher in the field of bioengineering, I want to enrich the field with India centric solutions to various biomedical problems and contribute innovative solutions to health-related issues of Indian citizens. In future, I also want to work for the advancement of Indian academics.

Reference

Chatterjee, N., & Misra, S. K. (2023). Nanocarbon-Enforced Anisotropic MusCAMLR for Rapid Rescue of Mechanically Damaged Skeletal Muscles. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.3c01889

Copy Editor: Anjali Mahilkar

For interview related queries, write to us at interview.biopatrika@gmail.com

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