GelTech Labs is a California biomaterials R&D company that uses robotics and AI to speed up testing of hydrogels and other soft biomaterials and produce more repeatable, reliable data. That data trains machine learning models and builds simulated datasets for each team's biomaterial formulations, so biomaterials teams reach formulation decisions much faster.

Teams start working with GelTech Labs in one of two ways: ship samples or a brief to GelTech's R&D lab and get back a dataset and report, or buy or lease Carousel for their own lab. Working with the lab doesn't require buying an instrument.

GelTech Labs helps a product reach animal and clinical studies sooner by running tests faster with robotics and AI and producing more repeatable, reliable data. Machine learning models and simulated datasets built on that data help a team reach its formulation decision much faster. GelTech doesn't run animal or clinical studies itself.

GelTech Labs tests hydrogels and other soft biomaterials as liquids, gels and solids, including powders, films and patches, tablets and pills, injectables, microparticles, diapers and food gels. Carousel takes samples from 5 mg dry mass up to a 100 g load.

GelTech Labs was founded by Sinan Gölhan, its CEO and the inventor of Carousel.

GelTech Labs runs a biomaterials R&D lab that takes a material from design and formulation through testing to regulatory submission, and makes Carousel, an instrument for automated biomaterial and gel performance testing. AnGel AI, GelTech's software, now in beta, helps teams design and plan experiments and reports on each run.

GelTech Labs, Inc. is a California biomaterials R&D company, incorporated in August 2025 and based in La Jolla, San Diego. It has no connection to GelTech Solutions, Inc., or any Florida company with a similar name.

Lab automation for biomaterials is the use of robotics, instruments and software so formulation and testing of gels and polymers run the same way every time, around the clock. GelTech Labs builds that automation for soft biomaterials, from formulation to performance testing and modeling.

Working with GelTech Labs doesn't require buying an instrument. With GelTech's R&D services, you send samples or a brief, GelTech runs the work in its lab, and you get the dataset and report back.

AnGel AI, GelTech Labs' design software, researches a project, suggests formulations from a target application, plans experiments and turns each run into a dataset and report. AnGel AI is available now in beta.

To start a study with GelTech Labs, send a message about your material. GelTech will scope an R&D pilot study, run it in its lab and return a dataset and report.

GelTech Labs sends a formal quote once a call has scoped the study to your material and what the data needs to show.

Labs can buy or lease GelTech Labs' Carousel instrument instead of commissioning a study, with an option to run it remotely. A Carousel lab install includes training, verification and validation, and a 30-day trial.

Carousel runs swelling and hydration, degradation, release, computer vision, pH and mechanical property tests on six samples at a time, around the clock: gravimetric and volumetric swelling, absorbency under load and vapor transmission; enzymatic, accelerated and hydrolytic degradation; drug release with UV-Vis, HPLC and LC-MS; computer vision for optical properties, color, transparency and morphology; and stiffness, mesh size and crosslink density, a method suitable for synthetic polymers only.

Carousel runs each test at temperatures from ambient to 60 °C, with pH monitored in line from 1.5 to 12, flow from 5 to 150 mL/min and mechanical pressure from 0.1 to 1 PSI. Its filters come in pore sizes from 0.45 to 1,000 µm, in polypropylene, nylon or PTFE.

Carousel measures swelling and degradation by weight: at each timepoint it drains free fluid through the sample's filter and weighs the sample to 1 mg, while on-board cameras capture it frame by frame. Mass loss can be tracked for weeks to months.

Carousel measures drug release by sampling the medium automatically at each timepoint and sending it to UV-Vis, HPLC or LC-MS, which read the drug, while Carousel records the sample's own swelling and mass loss in the same run.

Carousel supports in vitro to in vivo correlation (IVIVC) work by keeping each sample in its chamber at the temperature, pH and pressure a study sets, for weeks to months, which sits closer to conditions in the body than a hand-run bench test. Carousel doesn't replicate the human body, so an IVIVC still rests on the in vivo data it's built against.

Carousel can be bought or leased for your own lab, with install, training and a 30-day trial, or run remotely on GelTech Labs' own units.

AnGel AI is GelTech Labs' biomaterials design platform, available now in beta. Its Scout tool researches a question across literature, patents, clinical trials, regulation, market and similar products, its Design tool suggests ranked formulation concepts, and its planner turns a concept into a plate-ready experiment.

AnGel AI users keep everything: the data and documents they add, the reports, formulation concepts and experiment plans AnGel AI produces, and any IP that comes from them. GelTech Labs claims no rights to a customer's inputs or outputs.

AnGel AI encrypts customer data in transit and at rest and keeps each project isolated. A customer's data is never used to train shared models or shown to other customers, and GelTech Labs' data security is ISO 27001-aligned and SOC 2 Type 2-aligned.

AnGel AI, GelTech Labs' biomaterials design and development platform, is available now as a beta for teams willing to give feedback as it grows. Apply on this page and GelTech sets up a call. AnGel works alongside GelTech's testing and is part of GelTech's self-driving lab setup.

AnGel AI's Scout tool researches a biomaterials question across literature, patents, clinical trials, regulation, market and similar products, and marks each key finding verified or unverified. Its Design tool then suggests ranked formulation concepts, each with a likely failure and a first test, so a team starts lab work with a plan.

AnGel AI builds property models from a team's own data once that data is ready to model. Its Data & Models area checks a dataset's quality and predictability first, and the beta's sandbox shows how a model responds using demo models on synthetic data.

Each GelTech Labs study returns a dataset and a report. Carousel's raw output is .csv data files and .jpg images of each sample, and Carousel runs online through the cloud or offline.

GelTech Labs' data is GLP-aligned and ISO 17025-aligned, its software is 21 CFR Part 11-aligned, and its data security is ISO 27001-aligned and SOC 2 Type 2-aligned. Each study returns a dataset and report the quality team can review.

GelTech Labs' clients own their IP, formulations and characterization results, which GelTech keeps under strict NDAs. Client data is encrypted in transit and at rest, isolated per project, and never used to train shared models.

Working with GelTech Labs' R&D lab doesn't require buying an instrument. You send samples or a brief, GelTech runs the work, and you get the dataset and report. Teams that want Carousel in their own lab can buy or lease one later.

Rheology testing measures how a gel deforms and flows under force: its storage modulus (G′), the solid-like stiffness, its loss modulus (G″), the liquid-like part, and the ratio between them (tan δ), often across a frequency sweep. In a gel, G′ sits above G″.

Dissolution testing measures how fast a drug leaves an oral solid, using the USP <711> basket or paddle, while in vitro release testing measures how fast an active leaves a hydrogel, microsphere or implant. USP <1001> covers in vitro release testing for injectables and implants, and GelTech Labs runs both kinds of study.

GelTech Labs focuses on drug delivery, wound care, and tissue engineering and implants, with long-acting injectables as its main focus. GelTech also tests materials for cosmetics, hygiene, sustainability and energy.

A pilot study with GelTech Labs starts with your material, or one GelTech formulates with you. GelTech agrees the tests, fluid and conditions, runs the study in its lab, and delivers the dataset and a report. Teams that test often can then run the same methods on their own Carousel.

No, GelTech Labs doesn't only test hydrogels. GelTech tests polymeric and natural soft biomaterials, hydrogels included, as powders, films, tablets, injectables, microparticles, amorphous gels and custom forms.

GelTech Labs' methods are aligned with EN 13726 for wound dressings, NWSP 240 and 242 for superabsorbents, USP <711> for dissolution and ISO 37 for tensile testing.

GelTech Labs can often test a soft biomaterial outside the markets listed here. GelTech accepts custom sample forms, so it can scope a study for a material in another field.

A cosmetics safety lab shows a product is safe to use, through toxicology, microbial and preservative-efficacy tests. A performance lab measures how the product works: how it takes up fluid, flows and releases an active. GelTech Labs runs performance testing only.

GelTech Labs runs candidate gels side by side in one study, at the same temperature and pH, with replicates of each. Precision is about 3x higher than manual methods, so a gap between the curves points to the formulation.

Yes, GelTech Labs tests carbomer and hyaluronic acid gels, along with hydrogel patches and encapsulated actives. Each is tested for fluid uptake, rheology and release of the active, with uptake and release run from ambient to 60 °C and pH 1.5 to 12.

Release data can help choose between formulations: data that shows how each depot took up fluid, set and eroded lets a team compare candidates on why they release as they do, not only how much. GelTech Labs runs candidates side by side in one study, so the formulation that goes into animal studies is chosen on a full picture.

Release testing by hand means pulling, sampling and replacing medium at every timepoint, often for weeks, and the depot itself is rarely weighed. GelTech Labs automates that work around the clock and records depot mass beside drug release, with about 3x higher precision than manual methods.

IVIVC, or in vitro to in vivo correlation, is a model that links a drug's release measured in the lab to its concentration in the body over time. GelTech Labs runs depot studies in media at the temperature and pH a study sets, for weeks to months, so the data sits closer to in vivo conditions and gives IVIVC work a stronger basis. Carousel doesn't replicate the human body.

A burst release is the drug a depot lets go in its first hours, before steady release sets in. It comes from drug near the surface or drug that escapes before the depot sets, and it can raise plasma levels early. GelTech Labs samples the medium from the first hours, while Carousel tracks how the depot takes up fluid and sets over the same period.

USP general chapter <1001> describes in vitro release test methods for parenteral products such as injectables and implants. USP <711> covers dissolution of oral dosage forms. GelTech Labs runs release and dissolution studies across a pH range of 1.5 to 12.

Carousel, GelTech Labs' automated testing instrument, runs only from ambient to 60 °C, so it suits gels for reservoirs in that range. Many reservoirs run hotter, and aging above 60 °C, core floods and reservoir-pressure tests are outside GelTech's scope.

Conformance control is the oilfield practice of blocking high-permeability channels in a reservoir, so injected water or gas sweeps toward the oil instead of bypassing it. Crosslinked polymer gels placed in those channels are one way to block them. GelTech Labs tests how such gels swell and age in brine.

A gel's swelling ratio is its swollen mass minus its dry mass, divided by its dry mass. GelTech Labs' Carousel records that mass through the run in the fluid you specify, so the ratio arrives as a curve rather than one reading.

GelTech Labs accepts gels as powders, microparticles, amorphous gels, solids and custom formats. That covers dried particle gels, microgels and bulk gel samples, each run in the brine you specify.

An absorbency under load test presses a set weight on the swelling superabsorbent, and the result states that pressure. GelTech Labs runs it from 0.1 to 1 PSI, aligned with NWSP 242, and can repeat it at several pressures to show how capacity falls.

A superabsorbent polymer (SAP) is a lightly crosslinked network, most often sodium polyacrylate, that takes up many times its own weight in water and holds it as a gel. It's the absorbent in diaper, incontinence and feminine-care cores, and GelTech Labs tests it as a powder, granules or core.

A mass-loss test isn't a biodegradation test. It tracks the hydrated mass a superabsorbent loses in a chosen fluid, at a set temperature and pH, over time. Composting, soil burial and other environmental biodegradation tests are separate studies, and GelTech Labs' mass-loss curve doesn't stand in for them.

Hydrogels in agriculture are crosslinked, water-loving polymer networks mixed into soil: they take up rain or irrigation water, hold it in the root zone, and give it back to plants as the soil dries. The aim is to water a crop less often. GelTech Labs measures how much water they take up, and how fast.

Water absorption capacity is the mass of water a hydrogel holds per gram of dry polymer, reported in g/g. A 2026 review of agricultural hydrogels (Wang et al., Gels 12(5), 2026, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13205427) found reported capacities spanning roughly 15 to 3,240 g/g. A figure only compares with another measured in the same fluid, so GelTech Labs reports each one with its fluid.

How long a hydrogel lasts in soil depends on its chemistry. Synthetic networks break down slowly, while biodegradable ones built on natural polymers break down sooner and usually hold less water. GelTech Labs' mass-loss test tracks breakdown in a chosen fluid, which is separate from a soil biodegradation test.

GelTech Labs adds a continuous hydrated-mass curve on the same samples beside ASTM F1635's dry-mass timepoints, which by hand each use up their own samples. Carousel records every timepoint unattended, with about 3x higher precision than manual methods. The curve sits beside your F1635 endpoints, not in place of them.

Hydrogel scaffold degradation is measured as mass loss over time in buffer, usually at body temperature, sometimes with enzymes or heat to speed it up. ASTM F1635 reads dry mass at set timepoints; GelTech Labs' Carousel adds a continuous hydrated-mass curve of the same samples.

The swelling ratio of a hydrogel is its swollen mass minus its dry mass, divided by its dry mass. The equilibrium swelling ratio is that figure once uptake stops, and a tighter hydrogel network swells less. GelTech Labs' Carousel tracks it on the same samples from first uptake to equilibrium.

GelTech Labs data can support an absorbency claim: GelTech delivers a documented dataset and report from methods aligned with EN 13726. The standard sets methods but no pass marks, so the limits come from your product specification. Your team decides how each dressing's full uptake curve supports the claim.

EN 13726 tests by hand mean lifting, blotting and weighing each dressing at every reading, so a study gets a few points and misses the curve. GelTech Labs runs the same tests on Carousel around the clock, unattended, with every reading weighed to 1 mg.

There's no single good MVTR (moisture vapor transmission rate) for a wound dressing: the right value depends on the wound. A dressing for heavy exudate needs a high MVTR to shed moisture, and one over a dry wound keeps it low. GelTech Labs runs MVTR upright and inverted.

Fluid handling capacity is the total fluid a wound dressing manages: what it absorbs plus what it loses as vapor, with liquid in contact. It applies to dressings with a liquid-impermeable backing. GelTech Labs measures both halves on Carousel in the same run.

Hydrogels are characterized by how they behave in fluid over time, plus their mechanics, chemistry and structure. Weighing gives swelling, mass loss and fluid handling; release testing gives the drug profile; rheology gives stiffness; FTIR gives the chemistry; and cryo-SEM gives the pore structure.

The main evaluation parameters for hydrogels are swelling ratio, equilibrium water content, gel fraction, degradation rate, drug release profile, mechanical modulus and pore size. Hydrogel wound dressings add fluid retention and moisture vapor transmission rate (MVTR).

A hydrogel's swelling ratio is calculated by subtracting the dry mass from the swollen mass, then dividing by the dry mass. Weigh the hydrogel at intervals after immersion; the equilibrium swelling ratio is that value once the mass stops changing. Multiply the ratio by 100 for percent swelling. Report the fluid, temperature, timepoint and dry-mass method alongside the number, since a swelling ratio doesn't compare to one measured a different way.

PLGA degradation is controlled by hydrolysis, at a rate set mainly by the polymer's lactide-to-glycolide ratio, molecular weight and end group. In vitro studies track PLGA mass loss in buffer at body temperature over weeks to months, and molecular weight falls before mass does.