For decades, researchers have relied on materials like Matrigel to grow cells in three dimensions. While these gels helped open the door to organoids and advanced cultures, they also carried serious limitations. Their composition changes from batch to batch, their properties cannot be tuned once a culture has started, and their animal origin prevents wider use in medicine. Synthetic alternatives exist, but they too fall short — fixed in their mechanics, inconsistent in supporting organoids, and largely unsuitable for 3D printing.

DyNAtrix was created to break through these barriers. Built from a synthetic polymer backbone decorated with peptides for adhesion, it carries DNA “anchors” that act as docking sites for modular DNA crosslinkers. By adding these modules, researchers can program the matrix to behave in ways that were once unthinkable: stiffness and plasticity can be tuned independently, even mid-experiment; cultures can be switched into new mechanical states simply by adding a DNA signal to the medium. What used to look like magic, a gel that changes toughness or relaxation time on command, is now a precise tool in the lab.

This programmability matters because cells do not just respond to chemicals, but to the forces and textures of their environment. With DyNAtrix, these cues are no longer fixed at the start of an experiment. A researcher studying kidney organoids, for example, can soften or stiffen the surrounding matrix at chosen time points and watch how tissue development responds. Brain, placenta, and liver organoids, once difficult to sustain in purely synthetic systems, thrive in DyNAtrix because its mechanics can be aligned to the tissue’s own rhythms.

The material is also highly practical. Gelation is triggered gently at body temperature, making it easy to encapsulate sensitive cells. Its reversible crosslinks allow the gel to flow through a printer nozzle and then re-form into a stable structure, turning DyNAtrix into a true bio-ink. And unlike animal-derived matrices, DyNAtrix can be shipped worldwide in powder form, stable for years without refrigeration.

In benchmark studies, cells cultured in DyNAtrix show survival rates of 95–97%, matching or exceeding Matrigel, while offering reproducibility and purity that animal products cannot achieve. More importantly, DyNAtrix gives scientists something new: a living environment that can be programmed in real time, opening a path toward more reliable drug screens, more faithful disease models, and, eventually, clinically viable engineered tissues.