A multidisciplinary team have built hydrogels built entirely from synthetic peptides so their properties can be precisely tailored through chemical design. By harnessing the power of collagen-inspired peptides and light-triggered chemistry, a University of Ottawa research team has engineered a customizable material with the potential to be a gamechanger for soft tissue repair, whether it’s closing a surgical incision or sealing a traumatic wound.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is one of medicine’s most powerful diagnostic tools. But certain tissues deep inside the body—including brain regions and delicate structures of the eye and orbit that are of particular relevance for ophthalmology—are difficult to image clearly. The problem is not the scanner itself, but the hardware that sends and receives radio signals.