Advances in scaffold materials of vascular tissue engineering

Abstract

Vascular graft is an important component of vascular tissue engineering. In the past several decades, the scaffold materials for vascular tissue engineering have developed from simple natural materials to compound of degradable polymer and biological materials. Great progress has been made in material design and procossing. Electrospirming has been introduced to replace the manual processing. However, more work still needs to be done to make the method of design and processing more satisfactory. Main efforts should be put into the studies on improving the mechanical properties and biological functions of the scaffold materials. Key words: Tissue engineering; Vascular grafts; Extracellular matrix; Electrospinning