查看文章

Hydrogels such as those based on polyethylene glycol (PEG) are broadly used in biomedicine where high water contents, robust mechanical properties such as resilience and favorable interactions with the body are often simultaneously desirable. However, the mechanical properties of conventional hydrogels often degrade rapidly after swelling or with increasing water content, limiting their potential in many applications. Here we describe a new class of PEG-containing hydrogels that remain highly resilient after maximum swelling. We achieved the hydrogels by incorporating reversible “dual” hydrogen bonding into highly coiled, elastic PEG networks. These hydrogels, due to their high water content and high mechanical resilience, can form highly permeable, yet durable and easy-to-handle cell delivery devices without any additional structural support. In addition, optimization of chemical composition resulted in …