Polysaccharide-based hydrogels are currently attracting much interest for their fundamental properties such as tunable functionality, biocompatibility and high degree of swelling. In addition, these biomaterials formed an ample interior network which provided an opportunity for multiple uses including the incorporation of therapeutics. These unique properties offer great potential for the utilization of polysaccharide-based hydrogels in drug delivery. In general, hemicelluloses in the class of polysaccharides are among the most abundant natural polymers, yet poorly exploited as a green raw material. In this work, xylans-type polysaccharides were isolated from E. urograndis with different processes and chemically modified using hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) to give rise to various degree of substitution (DS). The resulting modified xylans were characterized by NMR, GPC and sugar analyses. Xylan-based hydrogels with varying degrees of substitution of HEMA were prepared from chemically modified xylans by varying the amount of water in a radical polymerization reaction and were investigated for their rheological and chemical properties. They were also examined for their properties in drug-release after encapsulation of doxorubicin, one of the most widely used anticancer therapeutics available today. These xylan-based hydrogels showed drug release kinetics that could be easily tuned by changing the DS and their initial water content. It was found in fact that hydrogels with lower DSs showed higher swelling capabilities and quicker release kinetics.