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We describe the preparation of an injectable, biocompatible,andelastic segmented copolymer hydrogel for biomedical applications,with segmented hydrophobic bisurea hard segments and hydrophilic PEGsegments. The segmented copolymers were obtained by the step growthpolymerization of amino-terminated PEG and aliphatic diisocyanate.Due to their capacity for multiple hydrogen bonding within the hydrophobicsegments, these copolymers can form highly stable gels in water atlow concentrations. Moreover, the gels show shear thinning by a factorof 40 at large strain, which allows injection through narrow gaugeneedles. Hydrogel moduli are highly tunable via the physical cross-linkdensity and the length of the hydrophilic segments. In particular,the mechanical properties can be optimized to match the propertiesof biological host tissues such as muscle tissue and the extracellularmatrix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]