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    Energetic electron assisted synthesis of highly tunable temperature-responsive collagen/elastin gels for cyclic actuation: macroscopic switching and molecular origins
    ([London] : Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature, 2019) Wilharm, Nils; Fischer, Tony; Ott, Florian; Konieczny, Robert; Zink, Mareike; Beck-Sickinger, Annette G.; Mayr, Stefan G.
    Thermoresponsive bio-only gels that yield sufficiently large strokes reversibly and without large hysteresis at a well-defined temperature in the physiological range, promise to be of value in biomedical application. Within the present work we demonstrate that electron beam modification of a blend of natural collagen and elastin gels is a route to achieve this goal, viz. to synthesize a bioresorbable gel with largely reversible volume contractions as large as 90% upon traversing a transition temperature that can be preadjusted between 36 °C and 43 °C by the applied electron dose. Employing circular dichroism and temperature depending confocal laser scanning microscopy measurements, we furthermore unravel the mechanisms underlying this macroscopic behavior on a molecular and network level, respectively and suggest a stringent picture to account for the experimental observations. © 2019, The Author(s).