4. Example of a sol-gel collagen-inspired hydrogel

At the University of Montpellier, researchers at the Institut des Biomolécules Max Mousseron and the Institut Charles Gerhardt have pooled their expertise to develop a new type of biomaterial that would combine the biocompatibility and bioactivity of natural polymers with the ease of synthesis and chemical modification of synthetic molecules. They naturally turned to collagen-mimicking peptides. Unlike the work presented in paragraph 3, their aim was not to reproduce the multi-scale structure of collagen, but rather to create a favorable three-dimensional environment for cells by repeatedly presenting them with Pro-Hyp-Gly motifs. Sol-gel chemistry was used to polymerize collagen peptides under mild conditions.