Led by Prof. Xudong Wang, scientists at the University of Wisconsin have developed a patch-like tissue-stimulating implant that gets around such problems. It’s known as a piezoelectric wafer, and it contains crystals of the non-toxic amino acid lysine. Via a self-assembly process, those crystals form and align themselves between two sheets of a flexible, biocompatible, biodegradable polymer called polyvinyl alcohol (PVA).
Office of Strategic Communication