Hydrogel cell encapsulation for tissue engineering

Abstract

The engineering of artificial tissues for restoration or replacement of organ function holds the potential to alter the landscape of medical therapeutics. In many tissue engineering approaches, cells seeded within 3D porous structures are expected to remodel into tissue-like structures. Despite significant progress, difficulties in lack of control over tissue architecture as well as vascularization continue to limit the efficacy of engineered constructs. This thesis describes work aimed at tackling these two problems. First, two techniques for generating size- and shape-controlled cell-laden hydrogels are described in the context of potential modular assembly for conferring greater control over the geometry of homotypic and heterotypic cell arrangements within engineered tissues. Then, a method for producing cell-loaded microfluidic agarose hydrogels for tissue engineering is described.