Rheology. Rheological measurements of the hydrogels were recorded using an Anton Paar MCR302 rheometer fitted with a 25 mm stainless steel parallel plate (PP25) and Peltier temperature controlled hood (P-PTD200/80/I). All measurements were recorded at 298 K, with water added to the Peltier hood to prevent sample evaporation. Time-sweeps were performed with frequency = 10 rad s -1 , strain = 0.1% and sampling rate = 5 seconds. Amplitude sweeps were performed with frequency = 10 rad s -1 , log ramp of strain (0.01 -100%) and sampling rate = 33 points per decade. Frequency sweeps were performed with strain = 0.1%, log ramp of frequency (0.1 -100 rad s -1 ) and sampling rate = 33 points per decade. The results were plotted using OriginPro 2017 and are presented in Figure . TiTannic gel dissolution study. An oil bath using sunflower oil was prepared by pouring the oil into a petri dish until a height from bottom of the dish to the liquid surface of around 1 cm was obtained. TiTannic gel was prepared as described above. Immediately upon mixing and vortexing TiTannic gel components, 10 µL droplets were manually pipetted directly into the oil bath, resulting in largely spherical aqueous droplets inside the oil bath. These liquid droplets were allowed to gel for 1 hour to form TiTannic gel beads. The gel beads were then transferred into a 50 mL tube of ethanol using disposable transfer pipettes with an opening larger than the bead size. The 50 mL tubes were kept on a tube roller shaker (to ensure continuous mixing) for 1 hour, after which the ethanol was removed and replaced with fresh ethanol. This was repeated three times. During this process the gel beads were washed from oil and sterilized. This washing process was then repeated using sterile PBS (instead of ethanol). After sterilization in ethanol, tubes were only opened inside a biosafety cabinet and handled using aseptic technique and sterilized disposable transfer pipettes. After the final washing step, the beads were added into a sterile petri dish containing PBS which was placed on top of a micrometer ruler and photographs were taken from above the petri dish. The photographs were processed using Fiji, where the ruler was used to define distance in each photograph which could then be used to measure the size of each bead (~2 mm in diameter). Following this time point zero measurement, 10 gel beads were added into a 50 mL tube containing 50 mL of PBS, and 10 gel beads were added into a 50 mL tube containing 50 mL of cell culture media (DMEM) supplemented with 10% v/v fetal bovine serum. At pre-determined time intervals, the gel beads were aseptically transferred into a sterile petri dish and the size of each gel bead was again measured following the procedure outlined above. After each measurement, the gel beads were re-dispersed into 50 mL of fresh PBS or fresh DMEM to continue the incubation. During incubation the tubes were kept on a tube roller shaker. After the last time point, the results were plotted using GraphPad Prism 8 (GraphPad Software, USA) and the results are presented in Figure .