Vincenzo De Benedictis - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Vincenzo De Benedictis
Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A, Oct 18, 2014
Understanding the relationships between material surface properties and cellular responses is ess... more Understanding the relationships between material surface properties and cellular responses is essential to designing optimal material surfaces for implantation and tissue engineering. In this study, cellulose hydrogels were crosslinked using a non-toxic and natural component namely citric acid. The chemical treatment induces ACOOH functional groups that improve the hydrophilicity, roughness, and materials rheological properties. The physiochemical, morphological, and mechanical analyses were performed to analyze the material surface before and after crosslinking. This approach would help determine if the effect of chemical treatment on cellulose hydrogel improves the hydrophilicity, roughness, and rheological properties of the scaffold. In this study, it was demonstrated that the biological responses of human mesenchymal stem cell with regard to cell adhesion, proliferation, and differentiation were influenced in vitro by changing the surface chemistry and roughness. V
2015 1st Workshop on Nanotechnology in Instrumentation and Measurement (NANOFIM), 2015
Bioactive food-preserving systems are based on the use of a natural antimicrobial agent loaded in... more Bioactive food-preserving systems are based on the use of a natural antimicrobial agent loaded in a carrier material, which is able to trigger its release once necessary and to control the rate of release, thereby exerting either lethal or inhibitory effects against food pathogens or spoilage microorganisms. In this study the Schiff base of chitosan was synthesized by the reaction with cinnamaldehyde at different concentrations. Cinnamaldehyde is an aromatic α,ß-unsaturated aldehyde, and the major component in essential oils from some cinnamon species. It has been shown to exert antimicrobial activity against a wide range of microorganisms including bacteria, yeasts, and mould. The formation of the Schiff base is reversible under suitable conditions, and this might allow the release of the active cinnamaldehyde from chitosan, used as the carrier. The reaction kinetics was investigated by means of rheological analyses and infrared spectroscopy was used to assess the efficacy of the f...
2015 1st Workshop on Nanotechnology in Instrumentation and Measurement (NANOFIM), 2015
The aim of this study was to investigate the synthesis of chitosan nanoparticles for growth facto... more The aim of this study was to investigate the synthesis of chitosan nanoparticles for growth factor delivery in bone tissue engineering. Chitosan nanoparticles were synthesized via a modified precipitation process and their morphology and dimensions characterized by means of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and dynamic light scattering (DLS), respectively. In particular, both chitosan molecular weight and concentration were varied during the synthesis to assess the effect of those variables on the particle size and morphology. The stability of the nanoparticles in aqueous media was also assessed, by measuring the average increase of the particle size with time. A specific particle formulation was then selected and loaded with a model molecule, i.e. an oligopeptide derived from the bone morphogenetic protein BMP2. The effect of the nanoparticles on the viability of osteoblast-like MG63 cells was finally assessed in a cytotoxicity assay. The encouraging results obtained in this study...
Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering
International Journal of Polymer Science
Genipin (GN) is a natural molecule extracted from the fruit of Gardenia jasminoides Ellis accordi... more Genipin (GN) is a natural molecule extracted from the fruit of Gardenia jasminoides Ellis according to modern microbiological processes. Genipin is considered as a favorable cross-linking agent due to its low cytotoxicity compared to widely used cross-linkers; it cross-links compounds with primary amine groups such as proteins, collagen, and chitosan. Chitosan is a biocompatible polymer that is currently studied in bone tissue engineering for its capacity to promote growth and mineral-rich matrix deposition by osteoblasts in culture. In this work, two genipin cross-linked chitosan scaffolds for bone repair and regeneration were prepared with different GN concentrations, and their chemical, physical, and biological properties were explored. Scanning electron microscopy and mechanical tests revealed that nonremarkable changes in morphology, porosity, and mechanical strength of scaffolds are induced by increasing the cross-linking degree. Also, the degradation rate was shown to decreas...
Journal of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine, 2016
In this study, a new foaming method, based on physical foaming combined with microwave-induced cu... more In this study, a new foaming method, based on physical foaming combined with microwave-induced curing, is proposed in combination with a surface bioactivation to develop scaffold for bone tissue regeneration. In the first step of the process, a stable physical foaming was induced using a surfactant (Pluronic) as blowing agent of a homogeneous blend of Chitosan and polyethylene glycol diacrylate (PEGDA700) solutions. In the second step, the porous structure of the foaming was chemically stabilized by radical polymerization induced by homogeneous heating of the sample in a microwave reactor. In this step, 2,2-azobis[2-(2-imidazolin-2yl)propane]dihydrochloride was used as thermoinitiator (TI). Chitosan and PEGDA were mixed in different blends to investigate the influence of the composition on the final properties of the material. The chemical properties of each sample were evaluated by infrared attenuated total reflectance analysis, before and after curing in order to maximize reaction yield and optimize kinetic parameters (i.e. time curing, microwave power). Absorption capacity, elastic modulus, porosity and morphology of the porous structure were measured for each sample. The stability of materials was evaluated in vitro by degradation test in phosphate-buffered saline. To improve the bioactivity and biological properties of chitosan scaffold, a biomineralization process was used. Biological characterization was carried out with the aim to prove the effect of biomineralization scaffold on human mesenchymal stem cells behaviour. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Polymers, 2016
The Mark-Houwink-Sakurada (MHS) equation allows for estimation of rheological properties, if the ... more The Mark-Houwink-Sakurada (MHS) equation allows for estimation of rheological properties, if the molecular weight is known along with good understanding of the polymer conformation. The intrinsic viscosity of a polymer solution is related to the polymer molecular weight according to the MHS equation, where the value of the constants is related to the specific solvent and its concentration. However, MHS constants do not account for other characteristics of the polymeric solutions, i.e., Deacetilation Degree (DD) when the solute is chitosan. In this paper, the degradation of chitosan in different acidic environments by thermal treatment is addressed. In particular, two different solutions are investigated (used as solvent acetic or hydrochloric acid) with different concentrations used for the preparation of chitosan solutions. The samples were treated at different temperatures (4, 30, and 80˝C) and time points (3, 6 and 24 h). Rheological, Gel Permeation Chromatography (GPC), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR), Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) and Thermal Gravimetric Analyses (TGA) were performed in order to assess the degradation rate of the polymer backbones. Measured values of molecular weight have been integrated in the simulation of the batch degradation of chitosan solutions for evaluating MHS coefficients to be compared with their corresponding experimental values. Evaluating the relationship between the different parameters used in the preparation of chitosan solutions (e.g., temperature, time, acid type and concentration), and their contribution to the degradation of chitosan backbone, it is important to have a mathematical frame that could account for phenomena involved in polymer degradation that go beyond the solvent-solute combination. Therefore, the goal of the present work is to propose an integration of MHS coefficients for chitosan solutions that contemplate a deacetylation degree for chitosan systems or a more general substitution degree for polymers in which viscosity depends not only on molecular weight and solvent combinations.
IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology, 2016
Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A, 2015
Physical foaming combined with microwave-induced curing was used in this study to develop an inno... more Physical foaming combined with microwave-induced curing was used in this study to develop an innovative device for bone tissue regeneration. In the first step of the process, a stable physical foaming was induced using a surfactant (i.e. pluronic) as blowing agent of a homogeneous blend of Sodium salt of carboxymethylcellulose (CMCNa) and polyethylene glycol diacrylate (PEGDA700) solution. In the second step, the porous structure of the scaffold was chemically stabilized by radical polymerization induced by a homogeneous rapid heating of the sample in a microwave reactor. In this step 2,2-Azobis[2-(2-imidazolin-2 yl)propane]Dihydrochloride was used as thermoinitiator (TI). CMCNa and PEGDA were mixed with different blends to correlate the properties of final product with the composition. The chemical properties of each sample were evaluated by spectroscopy analysis ATR-IR (before and after curing) in order to maximize reaction yield, and optimize kinetic parameters (i.e. time curing, microwave power). The stability of the materials was evaluated in vitro by degradation test in Phosphate Buffered Saline (PBS). Biological analyses were performed to evaluate the effect of scaffold materials on cellular behaviour in terms of proliferation and early osteogenic differentiation of human Mesenchymal Stem Cells (hMSC). This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Journal of Applied Polymer Science, 2015
ABSTRACT The main aim of this work is the synthesis and characterization of cross-linked chitosan... more ABSTRACT The main aim of this work is the synthesis and characterization of cross-linked chitosan systems. Chitosan hydrogels can be prepared by physical or chemical cross-linking of polymer chains. Chemical cross-linking, leading to the creation of hydrogel networks possessing improved mechanical properties and chemical stability, can be achieved using either synthetic agents or natural-based agents. In this work, the cross-linker Genipin, a naturally derived compound, was selected because of the lower acute toxicity compared to many other commonly used synthetic cross-linking reagents. In particular, the chemical stabilization of chitosan through genipin cross-linking molecules was performed and characterized by calorimetric analyses (differential scanning calorimetry), swelling measurements in different pHs, and ionic strength. The reaction kinetics was carried out by means of rheological measurements, and both the activation energy (Ea) and the reaction order (m) were calculated. The hydrogel analyses were carried out at different concentrations of genipin (GN1 and GN2). The results were used to evaluate the possibility to use the chemical cross-linked chitosan–genipin hydrogel for biomedical applications. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015, 132, 42256.
Journal of Biotechnology, 2014
Journal of Biotechnology, 2014
Applied Surface Science, 2009
In this work the roughening of polystyrene by means of radiofrequency plasmas fed with CF 4 has b... more In this work the roughening of polystyrene by means of radiofrequency plasmas fed with CF 4 has been studied. The effect of the Ar addition to the feed, the input power and the treatment duration has been investigated in terms of etching and fluorination degree. Wettability ...
Applied Surface Science, 2009
In this work the roughening of polystyrene by means of radiofrequency plasmas fed with CF 4 has b... more In this work the roughening of polystyrene by means of radiofrequency plasmas fed with CF 4 has been studied. The effect of the Ar addition to the feed, the input power and the treatment duration has been investigated in terms of etching and fluorination degree. Wettability ...
Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A, Oct 18, 2014
Understanding the relationships between material surface properties and cellular responses is ess... more Understanding the relationships between material surface properties and cellular responses is essential to designing optimal material surfaces for implantation and tissue engineering. In this study, cellulose hydrogels were crosslinked using a non-toxic and natural component namely citric acid. The chemical treatment induces ACOOH functional groups that improve the hydrophilicity, roughness, and materials rheological properties. The physiochemical, morphological, and mechanical analyses were performed to analyze the material surface before and after crosslinking. This approach would help determine if the effect of chemical treatment on cellulose hydrogel improves the hydrophilicity, roughness, and rheological properties of the scaffold. In this study, it was demonstrated that the biological responses of human mesenchymal stem cell with regard to cell adhesion, proliferation, and differentiation were influenced in vitro by changing the surface chemistry and roughness. V
2015 1st Workshop on Nanotechnology in Instrumentation and Measurement (NANOFIM), 2015
Bioactive food-preserving systems are based on the use of a natural antimicrobial agent loaded in... more Bioactive food-preserving systems are based on the use of a natural antimicrobial agent loaded in a carrier material, which is able to trigger its release once necessary and to control the rate of release, thereby exerting either lethal or inhibitory effects against food pathogens or spoilage microorganisms. In this study the Schiff base of chitosan was synthesized by the reaction with cinnamaldehyde at different concentrations. Cinnamaldehyde is an aromatic α,ß-unsaturated aldehyde, and the major component in essential oils from some cinnamon species. It has been shown to exert antimicrobial activity against a wide range of microorganisms including bacteria, yeasts, and mould. The formation of the Schiff base is reversible under suitable conditions, and this might allow the release of the active cinnamaldehyde from chitosan, used as the carrier. The reaction kinetics was investigated by means of rheological analyses and infrared spectroscopy was used to assess the efficacy of the f...
2015 1st Workshop on Nanotechnology in Instrumentation and Measurement (NANOFIM), 2015
The aim of this study was to investigate the synthesis of chitosan nanoparticles for growth facto... more The aim of this study was to investigate the synthesis of chitosan nanoparticles for growth factor delivery in bone tissue engineering. Chitosan nanoparticles were synthesized via a modified precipitation process and their morphology and dimensions characterized by means of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and dynamic light scattering (DLS), respectively. In particular, both chitosan molecular weight and concentration were varied during the synthesis to assess the effect of those variables on the particle size and morphology. The stability of the nanoparticles in aqueous media was also assessed, by measuring the average increase of the particle size with time. A specific particle formulation was then selected and loaded with a model molecule, i.e. an oligopeptide derived from the bone morphogenetic protein BMP2. The effect of the nanoparticles on the viability of osteoblast-like MG63 cells was finally assessed in a cytotoxicity assay. The encouraging results obtained in this study...
Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering
International Journal of Polymer Science
Genipin (GN) is a natural molecule extracted from the fruit of Gardenia jasminoides Ellis accordi... more Genipin (GN) is a natural molecule extracted from the fruit of Gardenia jasminoides Ellis according to modern microbiological processes. Genipin is considered as a favorable cross-linking agent due to its low cytotoxicity compared to widely used cross-linkers; it cross-links compounds with primary amine groups such as proteins, collagen, and chitosan. Chitosan is a biocompatible polymer that is currently studied in bone tissue engineering for its capacity to promote growth and mineral-rich matrix deposition by osteoblasts in culture. In this work, two genipin cross-linked chitosan scaffolds for bone repair and regeneration were prepared with different GN concentrations, and their chemical, physical, and biological properties were explored. Scanning electron microscopy and mechanical tests revealed that nonremarkable changes in morphology, porosity, and mechanical strength of scaffolds are induced by increasing the cross-linking degree. Also, the degradation rate was shown to decreas...
Journal of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine, 2016
In this study, a new foaming method, based on physical foaming combined with microwave-induced cu... more In this study, a new foaming method, based on physical foaming combined with microwave-induced curing, is proposed in combination with a surface bioactivation to develop scaffold for bone tissue regeneration. In the first step of the process, a stable physical foaming was induced using a surfactant (Pluronic) as blowing agent of a homogeneous blend of Chitosan and polyethylene glycol diacrylate (PEGDA700) solutions. In the second step, the porous structure of the foaming was chemically stabilized by radical polymerization induced by homogeneous heating of the sample in a microwave reactor. In this step, 2,2-azobis[2-(2-imidazolin-2yl)propane]dihydrochloride was used as thermoinitiator (TI). Chitosan and PEGDA were mixed in different blends to investigate the influence of the composition on the final properties of the material. The chemical properties of each sample were evaluated by infrared attenuated total reflectance analysis, before and after curing in order to maximize reaction yield and optimize kinetic parameters (i.e. time curing, microwave power). Absorption capacity, elastic modulus, porosity and morphology of the porous structure were measured for each sample. The stability of materials was evaluated in vitro by degradation test in phosphate-buffered saline. To improve the bioactivity and biological properties of chitosan scaffold, a biomineralization process was used. Biological characterization was carried out with the aim to prove the effect of biomineralization scaffold on human mesenchymal stem cells behaviour. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Polymers, 2016
The Mark-Houwink-Sakurada (MHS) equation allows for estimation of rheological properties, if the ... more The Mark-Houwink-Sakurada (MHS) equation allows for estimation of rheological properties, if the molecular weight is known along with good understanding of the polymer conformation. The intrinsic viscosity of a polymer solution is related to the polymer molecular weight according to the MHS equation, where the value of the constants is related to the specific solvent and its concentration. However, MHS constants do not account for other characteristics of the polymeric solutions, i.e., Deacetilation Degree (DD) when the solute is chitosan. In this paper, the degradation of chitosan in different acidic environments by thermal treatment is addressed. In particular, two different solutions are investigated (used as solvent acetic or hydrochloric acid) with different concentrations used for the preparation of chitosan solutions. The samples were treated at different temperatures (4, 30, and 80˝C) and time points (3, 6 and 24 h). Rheological, Gel Permeation Chromatography (GPC), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR), Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) and Thermal Gravimetric Analyses (TGA) were performed in order to assess the degradation rate of the polymer backbones. Measured values of molecular weight have been integrated in the simulation of the batch degradation of chitosan solutions for evaluating MHS coefficients to be compared with their corresponding experimental values. Evaluating the relationship between the different parameters used in the preparation of chitosan solutions (e.g., temperature, time, acid type and concentration), and their contribution to the degradation of chitosan backbone, it is important to have a mathematical frame that could account for phenomena involved in polymer degradation that go beyond the solvent-solute combination. Therefore, the goal of the present work is to propose an integration of MHS coefficients for chitosan solutions that contemplate a deacetylation degree for chitosan systems or a more general substitution degree for polymers in which viscosity depends not only on molecular weight and solvent combinations.
IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology, 2016
Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A, 2015
Physical foaming combined with microwave-induced curing was used in this study to develop an inno... more Physical foaming combined with microwave-induced curing was used in this study to develop an innovative device for bone tissue regeneration. In the first step of the process, a stable physical foaming was induced using a surfactant (i.e. pluronic) as blowing agent of a homogeneous blend of Sodium salt of carboxymethylcellulose (CMCNa) and polyethylene glycol diacrylate (PEGDA700) solution. In the second step, the porous structure of the scaffold was chemically stabilized by radical polymerization induced by a homogeneous rapid heating of the sample in a microwave reactor. In this step 2,2-Azobis[2-(2-imidazolin-2 yl)propane]Dihydrochloride was used as thermoinitiator (TI). CMCNa and PEGDA were mixed with different blends to correlate the properties of final product with the composition. The chemical properties of each sample were evaluated by spectroscopy analysis ATR-IR (before and after curing) in order to maximize reaction yield, and optimize kinetic parameters (i.e. time curing, microwave power). The stability of the materials was evaluated in vitro by degradation test in Phosphate Buffered Saline (PBS). Biological analyses were performed to evaluate the effect of scaffold materials on cellular behaviour in terms of proliferation and early osteogenic differentiation of human Mesenchymal Stem Cells (hMSC). This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Journal of Applied Polymer Science, 2015
ABSTRACT The main aim of this work is the synthesis and characterization of cross-linked chitosan... more ABSTRACT The main aim of this work is the synthesis and characterization of cross-linked chitosan systems. Chitosan hydrogels can be prepared by physical or chemical cross-linking of polymer chains. Chemical cross-linking, leading to the creation of hydrogel networks possessing improved mechanical properties and chemical stability, can be achieved using either synthetic agents or natural-based agents. In this work, the cross-linker Genipin, a naturally derived compound, was selected because of the lower acute toxicity compared to many other commonly used synthetic cross-linking reagents. In particular, the chemical stabilization of chitosan through genipin cross-linking molecules was performed and characterized by calorimetric analyses (differential scanning calorimetry), swelling measurements in different pHs, and ionic strength. The reaction kinetics was carried out by means of rheological measurements, and both the activation energy (Ea) and the reaction order (m) were calculated. The hydrogel analyses were carried out at different concentrations of genipin (GN1 and GN2). The results were used to evaluate the possibility to use the chemical cross-linked chitosan–genipin hydrogel for biomedical applications. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015, 132, 42256.
Journal of Biotechnology, 2014
Journal of Biotechnology, 2014
Applied Surface Science, 2009
In this work the roughening of polystyrene by means of radiofrequency plasmas fed with CF 4 has b... more In this work the roughening of polystyrene by means of radiofrequency plasmas fed with CF 4 has been studied. The effect of the Ar addition to the feed, the input power and the treatment duration has been investigated in terms of etching and fluorination degree. Wettability ...
Applied Surface Science, 2009
In this work the roughening of polystyrene by means of radiofrequency plasmas fed with CF 4 has b... more In this work the roughening of polystyrene by means of radiofrequency plasmas fed with CF 4 has been studied. The effect of the Ar addition to the feed, the input power and the treatment duration has been investigated in terms of etching and fluorination degree. Wettability ...