Phase transfer of a cargo laden scaffold

Abstract

The present invention relates to a process for producing a composition comprising an aqueous medium and, disposed in the aqueous medium, a first volume of a first hydrogel, which process comprises: (i) providing a composition comprising a first hydrophobic medium and, disposed in the first hydrophobic medium, a first volume of a first hydrogel; (ii) disposing a volume of an aqueous composition comprising a hydrogel compound around the first volume of the first hydrogel; (iii) allowing the aqueous composition comprising the hydrogel compound to form a gel and thereby forming a hydrogel object,which hydrogel object comprises the first volume of the first hydrogel and a second volume of a second hydrogel, which second volume of the second hydrogel is disposed around the first volume of the first hydrogel; and (iv) transferring the hydrogel object from the first hydrophobic medium to an aqueous medium and thereby producing the composition comprising the aqueous medium and, disposed in theaqueous medium, the first volume of the first hydrogel. The invention further provides a hydrogel object, which hydrogel object comprises a first volume of a first hydrogel and a second volume of a second hydrogel, which second volume of the second hydrogel is disposed around the first volume of the first hydrogel.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates to a method of preparing a composition comprising an aqueous medium and a first volume of a first hydrogel disposed in the aqueous medium. The present invention also relates to hydrogel objects comprising a first volume of a first hydrogel and a second volume of a second hydrogel surrounding the First volume of first hydrogel setup. Background technique [0002] It has previously been demonstrated that using a laboratory-fabricated 3D droplet printer, patterned droplet networks containing thousands of picoliter (pL) volume droplets can be formed in fat-in-oil solutions (Villar, G., Graham, A.D. & Bayley, H. At issue-like printed material. Science 340, 48–52 (2013) and WO 2014 / 087175). Since the previous droplet structures are mainly prepared in host oil solutions, they are prone to dehydration, which leads to coalescence and loss of the original pattern. Using a hydration chamber can reduce these problems because it can...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

Limitations of this study are as follows: short lifetime of phase-transferred species (generally a maximum of 1 hour); only sucrose droplets (with their non-ideal cellular environment) as examples; large droplet size ( i.e. ≥65nL); the network is simple (consisting of 2-8 droplets); and, the probability of phase transition occurring is only 43% or 80% (depending on the solution )

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