A biocompatible injectable hydrogel as an solution for cell engineering and regenerative medicine
This new hydrogel is made out of 100% animal-free based hyaluronic acid. This makes it biodegradable, biocompatible, directly implantable in vivo and ensures reproducibility and test stability.
This hydrogel is easy to handle for cell encapsulation and can be injected for different applications such as 3D cell culture, bio-impression, or cell therapy.
Benefits
- -reproducible and customizable
- -biocompatible and biodegradable
- -non immunogenic
- -simple and homogeneous encapsulation of cells in 3d
- -fast gelation
- Injectable and ability to self-repair
- -animal origin-free
Issue
The fields of tissue engineering, 3D bio-imprinting and regenerative medicine are booming. However, these three sectors are in high demand for innovative solutions for biomimetic scaffold materials supply such as hydrogels.
Hydrogels used for research purposes (3D culture, organ-on-chip...) are generally of animal origin and therefore exhibit batch-to-batch variability, not to mention the fact that they are neither representative of the cellular physiological micro-environment nor transposable to clinical applications.
The bio-printing field is in shortage of bio-inks that are easily printable, biocompatible, and that can be applied to different bio-printing technologies (extrusion, laser, inkjet etc...)
Finally, the challenge for the next few years in cell therapy or regenerative medicine will be to enhance stem cell engraftment for a successful transplant. This requires substrates that do not currently exist and that will have to meet regulatory and safety criterias.
Solution
We developed a new hydrogel formulation based on 100 % hyaluronic acid (HA), a polysaccharide ubiquitous in the human body. This offers the possibility to closely mimick the cellular microenvironment.
Our new hydrogel is produced by simply mixing two solutions of modified HA partners. This formation process makes the hydrogel easily customizable and modifiable according to the targeted applications and, guarantees high reproducibility of the experimental results.
Moreover, the dynamic covalent character of crosslink junctions in this hydrogel network makes it malleable, injectable and able to self-heal almost instantly.
Thus, our animal-free hydrogel offers the possibility to biofabricate in vitro test platforms that may be directly applied in vivo:
- It can be used as a scaffold for 3D cell culture, and can closely mimick the dynamic aspects of cellular microenvironments. Moreover, it is transparent and compatible with different imaging techniques.
- Its original features make it printable, which offers the opportunity to use it as bio-ink in 3D bioprinting to develop tissue/organ structures. This emerging technology might be a possible way to solve the serious problem of tissue and organ shortages.
- Moreover, its high biocompatibility, biodegradability, easy handling, ability to be delivered via minimally invasive approaches and to conform to complex 3D geometries make it ideal for cell-based therapy.