New method for the viscoelastic analysis of soft and highly hydrated biomaterials

The role of materials mechanical properties is a new frontier for the evaluation of cell/material interaction, as well as for the determination of healthy/pathological state of a tissue. In these sense there is the need to have a unique method to measure materials viscoelastic properties. However, concerning with soft and highly hydrated constructs, the experimental set-up to precisely measure these properties is challenging because of the difficulty in defining zero stress or strain. To overcome these problems, we propose a novel and unique testing and data analysis technique (ERM) to derive materials viscoelastic properties. Results derived with this method can be compared to the ones obtained with standard testing techniques for viscoelastic materials. Pre-conditioning problems of testing soft and floppy materials are thus overcome, giving rise to have an accurate measure of viscous and elastic moduli of both hydrated materials and soft biological tissues. Small variations of measured properties can be also monitored with high precision, allowing a deeper investigation on the role of the scaffolding material or of tissue’s extracellular matrix (respectively in cell culture systems or in biomechanics measurements for the characterisation of soft tissues).