Ethan Hathaway

I am a sophomore at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City Utah. I am passionate about chemistry and materials science as a field. I've spent the last ten months in a laboratory working on hydrogels with biomedical applications. I have experience with 3D stereolithographic printing, rheology, and a DMA used for the mechanical characterization of materials. In my free time, I love to ski, climb, read, knit, and more!

Since my freshman year I have been doing research in Dr. Bates lab at the University of Utah, which specializes in sustainable polymers and biomedical applications for hydrogels.

The goal of my research is to create a bio ink functional on all three printers in lab. Optimally, it mimics the quality of Cell Link’s starter ink for the Lumen X but is more cost effective and possible to reproduce easily. This would help projects involving stereolithographic printing move faster and more efficiently. 

My work initially consisted of creating hydrogel mixtures using a polymer base, a photo initiator, and a photo absorber. Mixtures were crosslinked using UV light. Then, I compared mixtures and their gels properties to Cell Links. Data was acquired using a rheometer to quantify viscosity and tack of the solutions. After direct comparisons of my un-crosslinked ink to Cell Links, I used my knowledge of polymers to alter the mixture composition and achieve more similarity.

            Finally, I evaluated the printability of new mixtures on the Lumen X printer. Variable amounts of certain components were tested to determine what resulted in the best print. Multiple mixtures have been shown to be printable, but further tweaking is needed to achieve better clarity. Next steps will involve utilizing a crosslinking density equation to find differences between my prints and Cell Link prints. I will also continue testing mechanical properties of both. The data will be used for the adjustment of the mixture preparation to achieve the closest match between my mixture and Cell Links. It will be important to gather more baseline data to advance my work. 

I am a sophomore at the University of Utah. I am majoring in materials science and engineering. My coursework thus far includes an intro to MSE course, a course on materials transport, general and organic chemistry, calculus, and differential equations.