Heparin-based hydrogels are an important candidate for use in therapeutic applications, due to their low immunogenicity and ability to stabilize and sequester soluble proteins such as growth factors. However, engineering hydrogels to mimic biologically relevant environments, including their microstructure, mechanics, erosion, epitope presentation and release of soluble signals, requires the knowledge of the gelation kinetics and equilibrated material properties. We recently developed a high-throughput screening method to characterize therapeutic hydrogelators. Using multiple particle tracking microrheology, the sol-gel transition and gel properties of heparin-based hydrogels, consisting of maleimide functionalized heparin backbone and bis-thiol poly(ethylene glycol) cross-linker, are rapidly determined over a large parameter space including total polymer weight percent, cross-linker molecular weight and backbone functionality. Using this, we identify the optimal conditions for material assembly to engineer heparin hydrogel microstructure using electrospinning. Overall, this approach minimizes time and material, making it well suited for screening novel and emerging hydrogelators.

High-throughput screening of PEG-heparin hydrogels using multiple particle tracking microrheology

239th National Meeting (2010)

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