Manufacturing an advanced synthetic graft for gingival tissue engineering

Alhalees, R.L. (2025). Recent advances in soft tissue engineering techniques for treating gingival recession. Master Thesis, Biruni University Graduate Education Institute, Istanbul. Soft tissue engineering is an expanded research field that has new innovations that aspire to find complex solutions to treat the gingival recession by innovating a hydrogel that contribute to wound healing and be an effective alternative to the primary soft tissue engineering techniques such as autografts, allografts, and xenografts. The study aims to create a graft from natural and synthetic polymers that may be employed in gingival tissue engineering to boost the physical properties such as mechanical properties and degradation rate. To do so, detailed degradation and mechanical analyses have been conducted in this thesis. Swelling test was also done and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) has been taken to do the chemical analysis and investigate the relationship of hydrogel chemistry with mechanical, degradation and swelling results. As polymers, gelatin was chosen to mimic the collagen in gingiva. To increase the mechanical strength of gingiva\ different crosslinking agents including genipin and glutaraldehyde have been optimized and glutaraldehyde (GTA) have been found more efficient for crosslinking gelatin in the presence of polyethylene glycol (PEG). It was also found that PEG increased the compressive strength and modulus and swelling/degradation rate as well. Future research with Fibrin is needed to simulate natural gingival tissue and obtain flexible grafts. Keyword: Gingival Recession; Gelatin-PEG Hydrogel; Soft-Tissue Engineering.