# Wyoming IDeA Networks for Biomedical Research Excellence Phase 4 Team Science

> **NIH NIH P20** · UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING · 2024 · $779,559

## Abstract

Project Summary
Hydrogels are widely used in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine due to their ability to
mimic the physical properties of various tissues, host encapsulated cells, and serve as models
for diseased and traumatized tissue. Despite these advantages, they face many limitations that
hinder their utility and impede their adoption. A primary limitation is their inability to support cell
motility and proliferation, the elaboration of extracellular matrix (ECM) components, and the
development of de novo tissue. These limitations are primarily attributed to a lack of
hierarchical structure bridging the macromolecular and tissue length scales. Conventional,
homogeneous polymeric hydrogels, for instance, lack long range architectural features, such as
micron-scale porosity.
Recently, granular hydrogel scaffolds, a new class of materials composed of densely-packed
hydrogel microparticles, has been introduced and rapidly adopted. These scaffolds offer many
advantages over conventional hydrogels for tissue engineering. Leveraging advances in high-
throughput microfluidic emulsion templating, hydrogel particles can be produced in sufficiently
large quantities to enable the assembly of macroscale materials. These granular scaffolds offer
significantly increased porosity, facilitating the infiltration of cells and the rapid diffusional
exchange of nutrients and waste products. Moreover, particles can be designed independently
of macroscale requirements, effectively decoupling material stiffness from porosity. Beyond
these design advantages, granular scaffolds can be injected, 3D printed, or molded into
arbitrary shapes.
This proposal seeks to extend the known advantages of granular gels by incorporating newly
developed microfabrication capabilities. The Oakey lab has recently demonstrated the ability to
fabricate heterogeneous particles with network architecture sculpted on the nanoscale. This
capability offers several unique advantages including tunable rheological properties, controlled
degradation, and quantitatively tailored biofunctional interfaces. We will use these capabilities
to produce granular scaffolds as a medium to study fundamental and poorly understood
questions of cell motility and proliferation within granular scaffolds. This knowledge will then be
applied to develop translational applications for granular scaffolds in cartilage regeneration and
peripheral nerve allografts. Our interdisciplinary team of researchers have a track record of
productive research collaboration and mentoring and each investigator provides a specific and
complementary expertise that will inform the rapid acceleration of granular scaffold
development. The overlapping aims and activities between all projects will ensure that the
findings from each project inform the others. The Specific Aims of this collaborative team
project, described as a co-project and led by one investigator, are:
co-Project 1: To microfabricate hydrogel particles, cell carrie...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 11047866
- **Project number:** 3P20GM103432-23S2
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING
- **Principal Investigator:** David S Fay
- **Activity code:** P20 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $779,559
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2001-09-30 → 2027-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11047866

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 11047866, Wyoming IDeA Networks for Biomedical Research Excellence Phase 4 Team Science (3P20GM103432-23S2). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/11047866. Licensed CC0.

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