Accelerated wound healing by injectable microporous gel scaffolds assembled from annealed building blocks

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

• Level A · Stronger Clinical Evidence
• Level B · Emerging clinical evidence with positive signals
• Level C · Early human research exploring benefits
• Level D · Scientific groundwork from lab and animal studies
• Emerging · Emerging topic under active research

Abstract (original English)

Injectable hydrogels can provide a scaffold for in situ tissue regrowth and regeneration, yet gel degradation before tissue reformation limits the gels' ability to provide physical support. Here, we show that this shortcoming can be circumvented through an injectable, interconnected microporous gel scaffold assembled from annealed microgel building blocks whose chemical and physical properties can be tailored by microfluidic fabrication. In vitro, cells incorporated during scaffold formation proliferated and formed extensive three-dimensional networks within 48 h. In vivo, the scaffolds facilitated cell migration that resulted in rapid cutaneous-tissue regeneration and tissue-structure formation within five days. The combination of microporosity and injectability of these annealed gel scaffolds should enable novel routes to tissue regeneration and formation in vivo.

Evidence level

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

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