Creation of a Novel Biomedical Engineering Research Course for Incarcerated Students.

Unlabelled: Options for incarcerated individuals to participate in higher education in prison programs (HEPPs) have expanded in recent years to include courses in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, however these students remain an underserved population in the United States. Thus, there are opportunities to expand the available offerings, increase the diversity of coursework available by introducing subjects such as biomedical engineering (BME), and include cocurricular and extracurricular activities widely considered critical components of undergraduate training including research experiences. As such, a year-long program was developed to introduce students pursuing a bachelor's degree in an HEPP through an R1 institution to research principles in BME.

Biocompatible and Enzymatically Degradable Gels for 3D Cellular Encapsulation under Extreme Compressive Strain.

Cell encapsulating scaffolds are necessary for the study of cellular mechanosensing of cultured cells. However, conventional scaffolds used for loading cells in bulk generally fail at low compressive strain, while hydrogels designed for high toughness and strain resistance are generally unsuitable for cell encapsulation. Here we describe an alginate/gelatin methacryloyl interpenetrating network with multiple crosslinking modes that is robust to compressive strains greater than 70%, highly biocompatible, enzymatically degradable and able to effectively transfer strain to encapsulated cells.