Microfluidic formation of monodisperse tetra-PEG hydrogel microbeads for cell encapsulation

摘要

This conference proceeding reports a preliminary result regarding a simple technique to fabricate core-shell tetra-arm poly(ethylene glycol) (tetra-PEG) hydrogel microbeads encapsulating insulin-secreting cells using microfluidic emulsification and interfacial coupling reaction of two kinds of tetra-PEG macromonomers at the core-shell interface in the precursor aqueous droplets. Different from conventional PEG-based microbeads formation, in situ gelation system utilizing self-diffusion of the macromonomers in confined microdroplets allowed to prepare tetra-PEG hydrogel microbeads with narrow size distribution under mild gelation condition in the absence of heating and UV irradiation. This technology can be used to generate monodisperse tetra-PEG hydrogel microbeads to encapsulate sensitive cells for regenerative medicines.