Novel additive manufacturing applications for communicable disease prevention and control: focus on recent COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus has had serious adverse effects globally in 2020 which are foreseen to extend in 2021, as well. The most important of these effects was exceeding the capacity of the healthcare infrastructures, and the related inability to meet the need for various medical equipment especially within the first months of the crisis following the emergence and rapid spreading of the virus. Urgent global demand for the previously unavailable personal protective equipment, sterile disposable medical supplies as well as the active molecules including vaccines and drugs fueled the need for the coordinated efforts of the scientific community.

A novel polyurethane-based biodegradable elastomer as a promising material for skeletal muscle tissue engineering.

A key challenge in skeletal muscle tissue engineering is the choice of a proper scaffolding material as it should demonstrate elastic behavior to withstand and support the dynamic loading of the tissue microenvironment while being biodegradable and biocompatible. In this study, we tested the applicability of a novel biodegradable polyurethane (PU) elastomer chain extended with fibrinogen (Fib) to fulfill these requirements. Biodegradable polyurethane-fibrinogen (PU-Fib) elastomers were synthesized by step-wise condensation polymerization.