Unmet Need
• Sustainability: there is a need for materials supply that is both biocompatible and eco-friendly
• Engineering constraints: many available cellulose scaffolds lack tunable structural features (e.g., pore size, fiber orientation) that closely mimic native extracellular matrices (ECM) for specific tissue engineering uses
• Cost: bacterial cellulose (used for wound dressings and tissue scaffolds) is relatively costly due to complex production processes

The Technology
• Cellulose scaffolds derived from marine green macroalgae (Ulva sp. and Cladophora sp.), which are fast-growing, abundant, and require no arable land, fresh water, or fertilizers
• A decellularization process removes cellular material while retaining the native 3D architecture of the algae’s cellulose-based cell wall, producing porous/fibrous scaffolds with tunable features
• Biocompatibility: produced scaffolds are non-toxic, lignin-free and lack exogenous crosslinking

Potential Applications
• Tissue Engineering: an affordable template scaffolds for versatile tissue types, including skin, bone, tendons, cartilage, neural, muscle and blood vessels
• Biomedical Devices: Wound dressings, grafts, implants and test platforms for drug/cell screening.
• Potential in veterinary medicine, cosmetics testing, and sustainable biomedical research tools

Value Proposition
An environmentally, biocompatible novel biomaterial, with structural variations that hold a great potential for diverse biomedical applications, while promoting a sustainable aquaculture

Stage:
• Patent application filed
• in vitro and in vivo experiments confirmed long-term support for mammalian cell growth and integration, with low inflammation and good histological outcomes