Our Polymer Science and Technology modular course ran from the 29th October to 9th November and was highly successful, with delegates coming from over 20 different organisations. Attendees commented that the course was “very well set up and organised, ran like clockwork” and the presenters delivered “excellent presentations, enthusiastic about subject”.

The Polymer Centre offers a range of professional development courses in polymer science and technology, ranging from our popular 3 day course in Basic Polymer Science, through to more advanced individual modules in Polymer Synthesis, Physics and Dynamics and Rheology. Our courses will start again in May 2013.

To see the full range of courses that we offer, please visit our training web pages http://www.polymercentre.org.uk/training .

A new way to grow cells vital for nerve repair, developed by researchers from the University of Sheffield, could be a vital step for use in patients with severe nerve damage, including spinal injury.

Schwann cells are known to boost and amplify nerve growth in animal models, but their clinical use has been held back because they are difficult, time-consuming and costly to culture.

The Sheffield team, led by Professor John Haycock, has developed a new technique with adult rat tissue which overcomes all these problems, producing Schwann cells in less than half the time and at much lower cost.

“The ability of Schwann cells to boost nerve growth was proved many years ago in animals, but if you want to use this technique with patients, the problem is: where do you get enough cells from?” said Professor Haycock, from the University’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

“To reduce immune rejection, the cells have to be grown from the patient’s own tissue. Of course, you want to take the smallest amount of tissue necessary, so the technique must be efficient. It must also be fast, so treatment can begin as soon as possible after injury. For clinical use, it must also provide pure Schwann cells. And finally, to make it viable, it has to be at a reasonable cost.”

Existing methods for growing Schwann cells from adult tissue promote the growth of another type of cell, called fibroblasts, which swamp the Schwann cells, reducing the speed they grow and their numbers. This means that large amounts of tissue are needed at the outset, to grow sufficient cells for therapeutic use. It also requires extra purification stages added to the process, making it slow and costly – taking up to 3 months to complete.

Professor Haycock and his team have come up with a very simple solution: feed the Schwann cells but starve the fibroblasts. The research, published recently in Nature Protocols, uses an amino acid that only the Schwann cells can break down and feed off, and are able to produce a 97 per cent pure population of Schwann cells in a much shorter space of time – just 19 days – from a small sample of adult tissue.

Professor Haycock is confident the technique can be replicated in humans. His team are trialling the same method using human nerve tissue, with results expected within the next six months.

At the end of September, the Polymer Centre said goodbye to Shelagh Evans (née Cowley), who has retired after 9 years of service to the University of Sheffield.

Shelagh was one of the original Polymer Centre team upon its foundation in 2003. She worked with Malcolm Butler to develop an operation which, today, represents 45 Sheffield research groups in polymer science and engineering by offering training and technology opportunities to industry.

She took responsibility for developing the Centre’s marketing and our training courses. We now engage with a network of over 1,500 contacts and hold Customer First accreditation; we provide training to more than 100 people per annum and are Google’s #1 for “polymer courses”.

She leaves quite a legacy. The former Polymer Centre Secretary, Rose Nightingale, won promotion to fill Shelagh’s training role as Training and Events Officer for Sheffield Science Gateway. Rose has already picked up the baton, completing the delivery of this autumn’s Modular Course and continuing to plan for next Spring’s.

We wish Shelagh and her husband, Paul, all the best for their retirement together.

Small molecule surfactants are known to self-assemble to produce anisotropic worm-like nano-structures under certain conditions. Aqueous solutions of these micelles exhibit interesting gel properties due to inter-worm entanglements including high viscosity, shear-thinning and stimulus response. This has led to a range of technological applications such as enhanced oil recovery, drag reduction agents and personal care thickeners.

Polymer Centre Director, Steve Armes, and co-workers have recently reported on less common themo-responsive polymer based worms. Diblock copolymers were prepared via aqueous dispersion polymerization. Careful control of the diblock composition enabled worms to be generated reproducibly. These worms form soft free-standing gels in aqueous solution.

Below a critical temperature, the material de-gels to form a free flowing liquid due to the worms reorganising to form spheres; the process is reversible and relatively insensitive to concentration. This critical gelation temperature can be tuned by altering the length of one of the copolymer components. It is anticipated that these materials will have biomedical applications.

For more information, please contact Joe Gaunt at the Polymer Centre. j.gaunt@sheffield.ac.uk .

Original publication: Rheological studies of thermo-responsive diblock copolymer worm gels. Robert Verber, Adam Blanazs and Steven P. Armes. Soft Matter, 2012, 8, pp 9915-9922.

Wednesday 28th and Thursday 29th November 2012

Bradford University is running two, one day courses in polymer engineering. Day 1 introduces participants to the behaviour of polymer melts on their passage through primary polymer conversion processes, and demonstrates how polymer properties change when subjected to different modes of loading. The course is at introductory level and will cover both melt and solid state characteristics of polymers and how these influence the suitability of a given polymer for an application and choice of processing technologies used by industry.

Day 2 aims to broaden participants’ knowledge of engineering principles governing the polymer extrusion and injection moulding processes. The course will cover advanced processing of each of these technologies and introduce modelling and flow simulation. Participants will gain hands-on experience in simulating mould filling using Autodesk® Moldflow® software.

See this link for further details.

Booking enquiries:
Please contact Events Bradford

t: (01274) 233217

f: (01274) 233218

e: events@bradford.ac.uk

or Dr Mike Martyn

CPD Training in Polymer Science and Technology
We had an excellent few days with some very positive feedback from our new 3 day Basic Polymer Science course with took place on the 21st – 23rd May 2012.  We were delighted to receive Kris Hyde from ITM Power who gave an interesting presentation on the research activities of a local SME, a company who work closely with our academics in the Polymer Centre.
The full programme for the Autumn course which will run from 29th October – 5th November 2012 is now open for registration. Please go to our web site at polymercentre.org.uk/training for more information.  Regulars to our courses will see that we have introduced changes to the  format and new material, extending some of our existing modules into two day courses. Prices are available on the web site.
If you are interested in attending any of these modules or need further information please contact Rose Nightingale at r.nightingale@sheffield.ac.uk

Engineers at the University of Sheffield have developed a robust and efficient computational model to calculate the behaviour of glass-fibre-reinforced laminate (GLARE) panels subjected to blast loadings. GLARE is commonly used in aerospace and automotive applications and the new model will inform the design of lightweight, blast-resistant structures.

Galal Mohamed and colleagues created a numerical model to study GLARE panels subjected to a blast-type pressure pulse and compared the results with experimental data on back-face deflection and post-damage observations. They found excellent agreement between the model and the test results.

The researchers undertook a further parametric study and identified GLARE as a potential blast attenuating structure, exhibiting superior blast potential to aluminium plates. They concluded that further work would study the influence of geometry in, for example, cylindrical structures, pre-pressurisation effects and boundary conditions.

The full article (G. F. A. Mohamed, C. Soutis, A. Hodzic, Appl. Compos. Mater., 2012, 19 (3-4), 619-636) is available via the link below (subscription required). Please contact Joe Gaunt at the Polymer Centre if you require any further information.

Journal article

Dr Joe Gaunt

The University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) reported on June 6 that its Composite Centre is now open for business in a new facility. The facility hosts a growing range of state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment for use in collaborative research.

Previously based in the original AMRC building on the Advanced Manufacturing Park, the Composite Centre now has bespoke facilities in a 19,375 sq ft extension to the AMRC Factory of the Future. Construction of the extension was funded by the European Regional Development Fund and the UK’s Department of Business Innovation and Skills.

The new facility allows the Centre to provide a full range of design, manufacturing, assembly and structural testing services for advanced composite materials. The Centre also works with complex hybrid components and systems that require manufacturing expertise in both composite and metallic structures. It includes a general workshop and a controlled environment with high-spec clean rooms and is equipped with a growing selection of state-of-the-art design, development and processing equipment, including an automated fibre placement (AFP) robot, 5-axis machining centres, filament winding machine and selection of autoclaves and ovens.

“We are very pleased to announce the new equipment coming in to our new facility,” says Richard Scaife, AMRC Composite Centre manager. “This greatly increases the range and flexibility of the resources available for the manufacture of complex high-fidelity composite parts.”

The new equipment includes a major upgrade to the AMRC’s AFP robot. Using such robots to automate the production of composite parts can help ensure consistent high quality of production, and reduce material waste. The robot now boasts a new four-tow head provided by member company Automated Dynamics. The head, believed to be the first of its kind in the UK, will allow more complex parts to be produced without human intervention.

“The new Automated Dynamics fibre placement head will allow the AMRC to remain at the cutting-edge of carbon fibre composite material production, and is vital to projects we are currently pursuing,” says Scaife. “By adding this head to our already existing in-situ thermoplastic, automated tape laying and 12-tow ITC thermoset heads, we have increased the versatility and overall efficiency of the machine, allowing us to develop solutions that were previously unattainable.”

AMRC Composite Centre

Composites at Sheffield

Research at the University of Sheffield demonstrates a new strategy for controlling the permeability of the walls of tiny polymer capsules or polymersomes. Switching the rate at which the polymersomes take up or release their contents means that the new systems could find application as synthetic bio-nanoreactors.

A team of researchers from Dresden, led by Prof Dr Brigitte Voit, and Sheffield, led by Prof Beppe Battaglia, showed how to make polymersomes with cross-linked, pH-responsive membranes. Cross-links are known to toughen membranes, and the team observed a novel response to pH change. Non-cross-linked analogues would completely fall apart as the polymer chains unfold and dissolve in acid; cross-linking holds the polymersome form together. But the membranes still tend to unfold and hydrate, causing the polymersomes to expand and become much more permeable than before.

The team went on to demonstrate that globular proteins can be encapsulated and their rate of reaction controlled by the polymersomes’ permeability. Potential applications of this science include further exploration of the origins of life, synthetic biology and new ways to carry out chemical reactions.

Please visit the link below for an abstract of the original article (subscription required for full text): J. Gaitzsch et al., Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. Engl. 2012, 51 (18), 4448-4451. More information is available from Dr Joe Gaunt at the Polymer Centre.

Angewandte Chemie

Contact Joe Gaunt

Engineers at the University of Sheffield have developed a method of assisting nerves damaged by traumatic accidents to repair naturally, which could improve the chances of restoring sensation and movement in injured limbs.

In a collaborative study with Laser Zentrum Hannover (Germany) published today (23 April 2012) in the journal Biofabrication, the team describes a new method for making medical devices called nerve guidance conduits or NGCs.

The method is based on laser direct writing, which enables the fabrication of complex structures from computer files via the use of CAD/CAM (computer aided design/manufacturing), and has allowed the research team to manufacture NGCs with designs that are far more advanced than previously possible.

Currently patients with severe traumatic nerve damage suffer a devastating loss of sensation and/or movement in the affected limb. The traditional course of action, where possible, is to surgically suture or graft the nerve endings together. However, reconstructive surgery often does not result in complete recovery.

“When nerves in the arms or legs are injured they have the ability to re-grow, unlike in the spinal cord; however, they need assistance to do this,” said University of Sheffield Professor of Bioengineering, John Haycock. “We are designing scaffold implants that can bridge an injury site and provide a range of physical and chemical cues for stimulating this regrowth.”

The new conduit is made from a biodegradable synthetic polymer material based on polylactic acid and has been designed to guide damaged nerves to re-grow through a number of small channels.

“Nerves aren’t just like one long cable, they’re made up of lots of small cables, similar to how an electrical wire is constructed,” said lead author Dr Frederik Claeyssens, of the University’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering. “Using our new technique we can make a conduit with individual strands so the nerve fibres can form a similar structure to an undamaged nerve.”

Once the nerve is fully regrown, the conduit biodegrades naturally. The team hopes that this approach will significantly increase recovery for a wide range of peripheral nerve injuries.

In laboratory experiments, nerve cells added to the polymer conduit grew naturally within its channelled structure and the research team is now working towards clinical trials.

“If successful we anticipate these scaffolds will not just be applicable to peripheral nerve injury, but could also be developed for other types of nerve damage too. The technique of laser direct writing may ultimately allow production of scaffolds that could help in the treatment of spinal cord injury” said Dr Claeyssens.

“What’s exciting about this work is that not only have we designed a new method for making nerve guide scaffolds which support nerve growth, we’ve also developed a method of easily reproducing them through micromolding.

“This technology could make a huge difference to patients suffering severe nerve damage,” he added.

Original Publication: “Two-photon polymerization-generated and micromolding-replicated 3-D scaffolds for peripheral neural tissue engineering applications”. A. Koroleva, A. A. Gill, I. Ortega, J.W. Haycock, S. Schlie, S.D. Gittard, B.N. Chichkov and F. Claeyssens. Biofabrication, 2012, Volume 4, No. 2.

For more information, please contact Dr Joe Gaunt at the Polymer Centre.

Contact Joe Gaunt.