Autonomously Self-Adhesive Hydrogels as Building Blocks for Additive Manufacturing

We report a simple method of preparing autonomous and rapid self-adhesive hydrogels and their use as building blocks for additive manufacturing of functional tissue scaffolds. Dynamic crosslinking between 2-aminophenylboronic acid-functionalized hyaluronic acid and poly(vinyl alcohol) yields hydrogels that recover their mechanical integrity within one minute after cutting or shear under both neutral and acidic pH conditions. Incorporation of this hydrogel in an interpenetrating calcium-alginate network results in an interfacially stiffer but still rapidly self-adhesive hydrogel that can be assembled into hollow perfusion channels by simple contact additive manufacturing within minutes. Such channels withstand fluid perfusion while retaining their dimensions and support endothelial cell growth and proliferation, providing a simple and modular route to produce customized cell scaffolds.