ICAMS 2016 – 6 th International Conference on Advanced Materials and Systems DEVELOPMENT AND CHARACTERIZATION OF COLLAGEN – CARBOXYMETHYLCELLULOSE MATERIALS FOR LENSES ALEXANDRA-CRISTINA BURDUŞEL 1 , IZABELA STANCU 1 , ION BOGDAN MIHAI 1 ŞTEFANIA MARIN 2 , CIPRIAN CHELARU 2 , ANDRADA SERAFIM 1 , DIANA DRĂGUŞIN 1 , MĂDĂLINA GEORGIANA ALBU KAYA 2 , GHEORGHE COARĂ 2 1 University Politehnica Bucharest, Faculty of Medical Engineering, 1-7 Gheorghe Polizu St., Bucharest, Romania 2 INCDTP - Division Leather and Footwear Research Institute, 93 Ion Minulescu St., 031215, Bucharest, Romania, albu_mada@yahoo.com (corresponding author) Cataract is one of the most common causes of blindness for people over 40 years old. Hydrogels are three – dimensional structures with increased properties which can be successful used in medical application such prosthesis or intraocular soft contact lenses. Sodium carboxymethylcellulose (CMC - Na) is the cheaper option currently available on the market with properties like biocompatibility similar with pHEMA. The aim of this study was to develop polymeric crystalline materials based on collagen (COL) and carboxymethylcellulose cross-linked with EDC/NHS for cataracts or other eye-disease. Type I fibrillar collagen gel with various ratios of CMC-Na hydrogels were lyophilized and tests tested by optic and scanning electronic microscopy, FT-IR spectroscopy and water absorption. The obtained gels were crosslinked with EDC/NHS and lyophilized in order to obtain spongious forms. They are porous structures with pore sizes between 25-81 μm. The samples with CMCNa presented more uniform and dense matrices and the crosslinked ones are more resistant, being more proper as material for lenses for be used in cataract. Keywords: collagen, carboxymethylcellulose, EDC/NHS. INTRODUCTION Cataract is the most common cause of vision loss in people over age 40 and is the principal cause of blindness in the world. In fact, there are more cases of cataracts worldwide than there are of glaucoma or other eyes diseases combined, according to Prevent Blindness America (PBA) (Gretchyn et al., 2016). Poly(hydroxyethyl methacrylate), pHEMA, hydrogels are highly biocompatible and transparent materials, with a high thermal stability, resistance to acid and alkaline hydrolysis and tuneable mechanical properties. These properties make them particularly useful as a basis of biomedical devices, such as catheters, intrauterine inserts, prosthesis or intraocular and soft contact lenses (pHEMA being the main material for lenses). Collagen is the most widely used tissue-derived natural macromolecule, and it exhibits attractive properties including good biodegradability, weak antigenicity, excellent biocompatibility and unique fibril-forming properties (Engel et al., 2005; Lee et al., 2001; Madhan et al., 2002). Carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) is one of the major low-cost, commercially available derivatives of cellulose used in industrial applications (Heinze and Koschella, 2005). An interesting potential application is the preparation of hydrogels with superabsorbent properties (Chang and Zhang, 2011). CMC has several advantageous properties for gel synthesis, such as good water solubility and the presence of reactive hydroxyl and carboxymethyl groups. The non-toxic nature and biocompatibility of such gels is advantageous for biomedical applications (Caló and Khutoryanskiy, 2015). 1-Ethyl-3-(3-Dimethylaminopropyl) Carbodiimide Hydrochloride / N-Hydroxysuc- cinimide (EDC/NHS) is a crosslinking agent complex for collagen and it offers