It’s a transparent hydrogel bound to the surface of any cell culture well.

And yes, it’s much softer than tissue culture plastic. That matters, because precisely how soft the environment is can have profound effects on cell fate and function.

What will your cells do in a softer world? To find out, order Softwell online or request a free sample at info@matrigen.com.

If you’ve ever run a Western blot, you’re already familiar with what Softwell hydrogels are made of: polyacrylamide.

So, while Softwell is new, there is nothing newfangled about its principle hydrogel component. Rather than reinvent the wheel, we simply decided to teach an old dog some new tricks.

Softwell grew from a desire to simplify the practice of culturing cells on soft hydrogels.

We accomplished this by developing methods to graft hydrogels of varying elasticity onto standard cell culture formats. Because cell behavior is also influenced by the presentation of ECM ligands, we developed an efficient method to couple them to the hydrogel. The result is a platform that provides control over matrix stiffness and ligand specificity.