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The outcome of cell-based therapies can benefit from carefully designed cell carriers. A multifunctional injectable vehicle for the co-delivery of human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) and osteoinductive peptides is proposed, to specifically direct hMSCs osteogenic differentiation. The osteogenic growth peptide (OGP) inspired the design of two peptides, where the bioactive portion of OGP was flanked by a protease-sensitive linker, or its scrambled sequence, to provide faster and slower release rates, respectively. Peptides were fully characterized and chemically grafted to alginate. Both OGP analogs released bioactive fragments in vitro, at different kinetics, which stimulated hMSCs proliferation and osteogenesis. hMSCs-laden OGP–alginate hydrogels were tested at an ectopic site in a xenograft mouse model. After 4 weeks, OGP–alginate hydrogels were more degraded and colonized by vascularized connective …