The term microencapsulation refers to the entrapment of a compound inside a polymer matrix, resulting into structures ranging from 1 micron to several 100 microns. This offers protection to the encapsulated material from external environments, thus increasing the efficacy of the loaded material for longer duration. This process is conventionally applied to controlled/sustained release of drugs and therapeutics. Electrohydrodynamic jetting (E-jetting) is a simple and versatile method to create 3D structures such as particles and fibres which are commonly used as encapsulation containers.

The main objective of the current work is to further explore this technique to encapsulate cargoes like cells, peptides, growth factors etc. and to create functional three-dimensional structures. The intended use can be cell therapy, drug screening and cancer research. Also, electrospun fibre meshes are employed as sacrificial templates to engineer microchannels inside a 3D hydrogel matrix. These channels can serve as a reservoir for drug release, or can be simply used as scaffolds for 3D cell culture.