Thermoresponsive Chitosan-based Hydrogels with Improved Gel Strength

Injectable hydrogels are considered as promising matrices for various biomedical and pharmaceutical applications, such as tissue engineering and local drug delivery devices. In situgelling systems, which show sol-gel transition at physiological conditions can be introduced through a minimally invasivemanner and gelled inside the target tissues [1]. During the past years, natural polymers owing to their biocompatibility andbiodegradability have been extensively studied for developingstimuli responsive hydrogels [2]. Among such systems, chitosan (CS)/ β-glycerol phosphate disodium salt (GP)formulations were shown to be thermoresponsive and investigated for a variety of potential biomedical applications[3]. As the properties of a specific hydrogel such as gel strength are extremely important for a given application, hence the objective of the current research is to investigate the effect of incorporating various amounts of hydroxyethyl cellulose (HEC) on gel characteristics of CS/GP formulations