We are excited to announce that this week Dr. Ethan Tsai, PSCCM Postdoc, and Vy Nguyen, Bioengineering Master’s Student, started synthesizing the poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) macromers required to create the foundation for our 3D lung cell culture models! Biodegradable, PEG-based elastomers will surround our cell-coated microsphere templates to produce complex alveolar geometries in vitro.

These materials allow for us to precisely tailor the stiffness, geometry and chemical composition of the cellular microenvironment. To learn more about the concept of bio-inspired 3D microenvironment, check out our review article on the topic here.