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• Selimović, Š
• Oh, J
• Bae, H
• Dokmeci, M
• Khademhosseini, A
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• Selimović, Š
• Oh, J
• Bae, H
• Dokmeci, M
• Khademhosseini, A
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• Selimović, Š
• Oh, J
• Bae, H
• Dokmeci, M
• Khademhosseini, A

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Polymers 2012, 4(3), 1554-1579; doi:10.3390/polym4031554

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Microscale Strategies for Generating Cell-Encapsulating Hydrogels

Šeila Selimović ^1,2 , Jonghyun Oh ^1,2 , Hojae Bae ³ , Mehmet Dokmeci ^1,2  and Ali Khademhosseini ^1,2,4,*

¹ Center for Biomedical Engineering, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA ² Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA ³ Department of Maxillofacial Biomedical Engineering and Institute of Oral Biology, School of Dentistry, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 130-701, Korea ⁴ Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Boston, MA 02115, USA

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Received: 4 May 2012; in revised form: 28 July 2012 / Accepted: 2 August 2012 / Published: 5 September 2012

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microfluidic-Assisted Synthesis and Modification of Polymeric Materials)

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Abstract: Hydrogels in which cells are encapsulated are of great potential interest for tissue engineering applications. These gels provide a structure inside which cells can spread and proliferate. Such structures benefit from controlled microarchitectures that can affect the behavior of the enclosed cells. Microfabrication-based techniques are emerging as powerful approaches to generate such cell-encapsulating hydrogel structures. In this paper we introduce common hydrogels and their crosslinking methods and review the latest microscale approaches for generation of cell containing gel particles. We specifically focus on microfluidics-based methods and on techniques such as micromolding and electrospinning.

Keywords: hydrogel; lab-on-a-chip; micromolding; microfluidics; cell encapsulation

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