Laura De Laporte develops oriented hydrogels for spinal cord repair

Passionate about medicine, yet not that good at memorizing things. Nevertheless, Laura De Laporte was very good at maths and sciences, so she decided to study engineering at the University of Ghent. During her studies, she had the chance to take a minor in biomedical engineering– a field taking its first steps in the late nineties. “The lightbulb moment came while following a lecture by Professor Etienne Schacht. He was explaining tissue engineering, and I immediately thought it was really cool,” she recalls. At that moment, she found a career path that would match her interests and skills perfectly. 

Laura De Laporte is now one of Europe’s most renowned experts in biofabrication, a realm focusing on creating biological tissues and organs using techniques like 3D printing. The chemist is a professor at the Chair Macromolecular Materials for Medicine at the University of Aachen (RWTH), Uniklinik RWTH Aachen, and DWI-Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials. She is one of the speakers of the bioprinting track at the upcoming 3D Medical Event in Eindhoven on January 28. 

When she first learned about tissue engineering, research in the domain was mainly focused on constructing polymer scaffolds to grow cells and tissues. Polymers are large molecules made of long chains of molecules called monomers.

Since then, the field has made giant leaps forward. De Laporte’s main research area now includes hydrogels for spinal cord repair. These injectable solutions form a scaffold right where the lesion is to help nerves grow after severe injuries and give new hope to those confined in wheelchairs. 

From implants to hydrogels

After graduating from Ghent University with a degree in chemical engineering, she moved to the United States. De Laporte pursued a Ph.D. there at Northwestern University, focusing on spinal cord repair. Despite researching rats, this work matched her interest in medical applications. 

“At that point, I was making implants that, when placed in the spinal cord, would help regenerate the nerves. But then I realized that a surgeon would never cut a piece out of the spinal cord to place one of these implants after an acute injury. I started thinking of something injectable and became interested in hydrogels.”

Hydrogels are networks of water-absorbing polymers that retain a large amount of water while maintaining their structure. Following injection, the polymers inside a hydrogel form structures that, as in the case of those for the spinal cord, help damaged nerves regenerate. Other examples of hydrogels are injectable solutions for local drug delivery and even for cancer treatment, as in the case of UPyther’s chemogel. 

De Laporte joined Jeffrey Hubbell’s lab at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland as a postdoc to learn more about them. After some years there, she moved to Germany, where she was offered a position at the RTWH. 

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A magnetic hydrogel

Over the past few years, De Laporte’s research group has specialized in rod-shaped microgels—tiny hydrogels. Inside these compounds are magnetic nanoparticles, which allow these microgels to turn inside a magnetic field. Following injection, another surrounding hydrogel crosslinks around the aligned microgels to stabilize the orientation of these microgels after the removal of the magnet, which then creates the scaffolds needed for cells to grow. She calls this oriented scaffold an Anisogel – an anisotropic hydrogel formed after injection. 

The Aachen researchers are also developing this technology to grow cartilage or heart tissues. Furthermore, they are also working to make these constructs move, to actuate cells during tissue formation. After several publications and successful in vitro experiments, the next milestone is proving the Anisogel functioning in animals. 

These hydrogel building blocks will be the focus of De Laporte’s keynote at the upcoming 3D Medical Event. “I will delve deeper into how to make these material building blocks and the techniques we developed, also giving an overview on how they can be used for bioprinting,” she explains. 

In De Laporte’s view, transformative medical devices are the future and can advance progress in many areas. “Many medical devices have plateaued because they are not transformative enough. Materials are becoming more transformational as more technologies are coming together to enhance this mutative nature. For example, in vitro models now have embedded electronic sensors to check how tissues grow and stimulate them.”

A multidisciplinary lab

De Laporte’s research group can count on 21 full-time Ph.D. students. Tens of other bachelor’s and master’s students support them while learning how to work in a lab and help Ph.D. students conduct their research. The diverse research group has chemists, biologists, and engineers on board. 

“No one works alone, as we aim to create a proper multidisciplinary setup. There is a lot of interaction between all students, fostering the creation of new ideas,” she says. De Laporte keeps close contact with her students beyond laboratory hours through a WhatsApp group chat that is constantly buzzing with ideas and experiment updates. 

“Brainstorming with my students is my favorite part of my job; I really enjoy discussing new solutions to problems we face in the lab,” she says enthusiastically. Starting from these ideas, they aim to bring new hope to all those whose conditions result in specific unmet needs.