Elasticizing tissues for reversible shape transformation and accelerated molecular labeling
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Updated: Oct 9, 2026

Directed Assembly of Elastin-like Proteins into defined Supramolecular Structures and Cargo Encapsulation In Vitro
Published on: April 8, 2020
Taeyun Ku1,2,3, Webster Guan4, Nicholas B Evans1,2
1Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA.
Abstract:
We developed entangled link-augmented stretchable tissue-hydrogel (ELAST), a technology that transforms tissues into elastic hydrogels to enhance macromolecular accessibility and mechanical stability simultaneously. ELASTicized tissues are highly stretchable and compressible, which enables reversible shape transformation and faster delivery of probes into intact tissue specimens via mechanical thinning. This universal platform may facilitate rapid and scalable molecular phenotyping of large-scale biological systems, such as human organs.

