Orthogonal thiol-ene 'click' reactions: a powerful combination for fabrication and functionalization of patterned hydrogelsElectronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: 10.1039/c7cc02298k

A combination of 'orthogonal' thiol-ene 'click' reactions is utilized for fabrication and functionalization of micro-patterned hydrogels. A furan-protected maleimide-containing parent copolymer is partially activated via the retro Diels-Alder reaction to obtain an 'orthogonally' functionalizable copolymer, where the different functional groups can be exploited for multi-functionalization or fabrication of functional hydrogels using combination of the nucleophilic and radical thiol-ene reactions. The fabrication of 'thiol-ene' functionalizable hydrogel micropatterns using an 'orthogonally' functionalizable polymeric system is disclosed.