Abstract

Extracellular Matrix Mimetic Hydrogels of Natural Polymers for Organ-on-chip Applications

Marcel Karperien, Professor, Developmental BioEngineering, MIRA Institute for Biomedical Technology & Technical Medicine, University of Twente

Matrigel is still the golden standard in many differentiation assays to recreate functional microtissues from stem cells. The use of matrigel comes however at an expense. The composition of matrigel is undefined, comes with substantial batch-to-batch variation and has limited stability particularly in long term cultures due to rapid remodeling. This hampers the development of reproducible organ-on-chip models. My group has developed a platform technology consisting of in situ gelating hydrogels consisting of polysaccharide-conjugates that cross link in a biocompatible enzymatic reaction. I will present our strategy to develop this platform further into extracellular matrix mimics. In addition, I will present recent data how we can use these hydrogels in microfluidic platforms to generate cellular microniches and novel biofabrication methods for one-step fabrication of heterogeneous tissue structures with multiscale hierarchy.