Kinetic characterization of biomolecular hydrogel dynamics

Biomolecular hydrogels hold promise in a variety of biophysical applications due to their ability to simulate biological tissues, provide controlled release of bioactive molecules, and mimic the natural cellular environment. Measuring the dynamics of biomolecular hydrogels has been challenging, however, because of their large size, transient nature, and locally heterogeneous composition. Previously water nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy has proven to be a powerful method of characterizing the rheological properties of biomolecular hydrogels, because the T2 relaxation time of water is correlated with the shear modulus of the biomolecular hydrogel.