(a) Hyaluronic acid (HA) modified with either norbornenes (NorHA, at either the carboxylic acid for NorHA1 or primary alcohol for NorHA2) or methacrylates (MeHA). The extent of modification of HA macromers was quantified using 1H NMR and categorized as either low (~10%), medium (~20%), or high (~40%). (b) Theoretical framework for stochastic modeling of HA modification, where a chain of ~200 disaccharides is modified stochastically at various rates and the distance between modifications is quantified for n=1000 simulations. (c) Histogram results from all simulations for the various modification levels, reported as the number of possible CD44 binding sites per HA chain based on the need for 4 unmodified disaccharides for binding (vertical dotted line indicates approximate maximum theoretical number of binding sites per HA chain).