Due to mild reaction conditions and temporal and spatial control over material formation, photopolymerization has become a valuable technique for the encapsulation of living cells in three dimensional, hydrated, biomimetic materials. For such applications,2-hydroxy-1-[4-(2-hydroxyethoxy) phenyl]-2-methyl-1-propanone (I2959) is the most commonly used photoinitiator (by virtue of its moderate water solubility), yet this initiator has an absorption spectrum that is poorly matched with wavelengths of light generally regarded as benign to living cells, limiting the rate at which it may initiate polymerization in their presence. In contrast, acylphosphine oxide photoinitiators, generally exhibit absorption spectra at wavelengths suitable for cell encapsulation, yet commercially available initiators of this class have low water solubility. Here, a water soluble lithium acylphosphinate salt is evaluated for its ability to polymerize diacrylated poly(ethylene glycol) (PEGDA) monomers rapidly into hydrogels, while maintaining high viability during direct encapsulation of cells. Through rheometric measurements, the time to reach gelation of a PEGDA solution with the phosphinate initiator is one tenth the time for that using I2959 at similar concentrations, when exposed to 365 nm light. Further, polymerization with the phosphinate initiator at 405 nm visible light exposure is achieved with low initiator concentrations and light intensities, precluded in polymerizations initiated with I2959 by its absorbance profile. When examined 24 hours after encapsulation, survival rates of human neonatal fibroblasts encapsulated in hydrogels polymerized with the phosphinate initiator exceed 95%, demonstrating the cytocompatibility of this initiating system.

Synthetic hydrogels with engineered, cell-mediated degradation sites are an important category of biomimetic materials. Here, hydrogels are synthesized by a step-growth reaction mechanism via a radically mediated thiol-norbornene (thiol-ene) photopolymerization. This reaction combines the advantages of ideal, homogeneous polymer network formation, facile incorporation of peptides without post-synthetic modification, and spatial and temporal control over the network evolution into a single system to produce proteolytically degradable poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) peptide hydrogels. Using a thiol-ene photopolymerization, rapid gelation times are achieved, while maintaining high cell viability for cell encapsulation. The enzyme- and cellresponsive characteristics are demonstrated by tailoring the rate of spreading of human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) through both the selection of proteolytically degradable crosslinkers and the density of the adhesion peptide RGDS. Furthermore, cellular function is manipulated spatially within the thiol-ene hydrogels through biochemical photopatterning. The high degree of spatial and temporal control over gelation, combined with robust material properties, makes thiol-ene hydrogels an excellent tool for a variety of medical and biological applications.

Cell-matrix interactions play critical roles in regeneration, development, and disease. The work presented here demonstrates that encapsulated human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) can be induced to differentiate down osteogenic and adipogenic pathways by controlling their 3D environment using tethered small molecule chemical functional groups. Hydrogels were formed using sufficiently low concentrations of tether molecules to maintain constant physical characteristics, encapsulation of hMSCs in 3D prevented changes in cell morphology, and hMSCs were shown to differentiate in normal growth media, indicating that the small-molecule functional groups induced differentiation. To our knowledge, this is the first example where synthetic matrices are shown to control induction of multiple hMSC lineages purely through interactions with small molecule chemical functional groups tethered to the hydrogel material. Strategies utilizing simple chemistry to control complex biological processes would be particularly are powerful as they could make production of therapeutic materials simpler, cheaper, and more easily controlled.

The synthesis, in vitro, and in vivo behavior of tumor‐homing magnetic nanoworms (NW) are described. The particles consist of a chainlike aggregation of iron oxide (IO) cores in a dextran coating. When conjugated with a tumor‐targeting peptide, they interact more effectively with a tumor‐based target in vitro relative to spherical nanoparticles. Untargeted NW display similar in vivo circulation times and enhanced passive accumulation in mouse xenograft tumors relative to untargeted spherical IO nanoparticles.