**Author details**

*Alginates - Recent Uses of This Natural Polymer*

encapsulation [152].

factors [153].

alginate-based device production.

generous support and donations.

**Acknowledgements**

**Conflict of interest**

review.

solution to overcome graft failure is to use smaller islet cell graft volumes with vascularized membranes to produce stable neovascularization near the grafted tissue [152]. Using a macroencapsulation device such as TheraCyte and loading it with islet cells of smaller volume can increase blood supply near the site of

Given the molecular composition of alginate and its ability to crosslink and form hydrogels, this biomaterial can be used in an array of medical and clinical applications. Unfortunately, the implantation of alginate induces an immune response of the host, producing setbacks that current labs are attempting to solve. Because of both macrophages mediated and T-cell mediated immune response, the alginate macro/micro device loses its viability and long-term function once it is implanted in the host. Strategies aiming to reduce or prevent fibrosis on alginate encapsulated cells present conflicting results. Newly developed capsules contain alginate without a polycation layer shown improvement potential because the pro-inflammatory characteristic of polycations have been connected to fibrotic growth around capsules [153]. For alginate beads, removing the polycation layer can lead to less stability and more permeability to cytokines and growth

Currently, the main focus regarding implantable alginate hydrogels is to address

A special thank you to the Department of Surgery at UC Irvine Medical Center and University of California, Irvine along with the Brownstein Family Trust for

The authors declare that there is no "conflict of interest" with respect to this

problems such as immune response, adequate sources of oxygen, and fibrosis. As more alginate-based devices are being brought into clinical application, these strategies among others should be considered and pursued for current and future

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Samuel Rodriguez1 , Rahul Tuli1 , Ashlyn Wheeler1 , Amy Nguyen1 , Jennifer Luong1 , Reza Mohammadi1 , Michael Alexander1 and Jonathan R.T. Lakey1,2\*

1 Department of Surgery, University of California Irvine, Orange, CA, USA

2 Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA

\*Address all correspondence to: jlakey@uci.edu

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
