Microfluidic Synthesis of Microgel Building Blocks for Microporous Annealed Particle Scaffold

The microporous annealed particle (MAP) scaffold platform is a subclass of granular hydrogels. It is composed of an injectable slurry of microgels that can form a structurally stable scaffold with cell-scale porosity in situ following a secondary light-based chemical crosslinking step (i.e., annealing). MAP scaffold has shown success in a variety of regenerative medicine applications, including dermal wound healing, vocal fold augmentation, and stem cell delivery. This paper describes the methods for synthesis and characterization of poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) microgels as the building blocks to form a MAP scaffold. These methods include the synthesis of a custom annealing macromer (MethMAL), determination of microgel precursor gelation kinetics, microfluidic device fabrication, microfluidic generation of microgels, microgel purification, and basic scaffold characterization, including microgel sizing and scaffold annealing. Specifically, the high-throughput microfluidic methods described herein can produce large volumes of microgels that can be used to generate MAP scaffolds for any desired application, especially in the field of regenerative medicine.

Automated summary

The MAP scaffold is a type of granular hydrogel with cell-scale porosity that can form a structurally stable scaffold through chemical crosslinking. It has been successfully used in various regenerative medicine applications, and this paper describes the methods for its synthesis and characterization.