Abstract
With the ever increasing demand for suitable tissue engineering and drug delivery systems, hydrogel fiber spinning has drawn increasing attention due to its ability to create three-dimensional (3D) structures using biomaterials. Hydrogel materials have shown a great promise to be used as templates for tissue engineering and implantable devices. Among the many production techniques available, advanced fiber processing, such as coaxial and triaxial spinning of natural hydrogels, has attracted a great deal of attention because the basic core-sheath structure provides a drug delivery system capable of delivering high concentrations of drug for localized drug delivery and tissue engineering applications. Encapsulating the drug and bioactive cores with a more bio-friendly coating allows for a versatile system for producing devices with appropriate mechanical, chemical and biological properties that can mimic the native extracellular matrix, better supporting cell growth and maintenance. This chapter presents a novel fabrication method using a wet-spinning process that allows for the routine production of multifunctional coaxial hydrogel fibers that take advantage of the encapsulating properties of a hydrogel core while also promoting good cell growth and biocompatibility via the use of bio-friendly material in the sheath.
Highlights
122 Hydrogels structural scaffolds aim to serve as a synthetic extracellular matrix (ECM) to both guide cell growth in a controlled 3D pattern and directly apply certain stimuli which promotes this growth
With the help of coaxial spinning, their fabrication process via wet-spinning is performed in a neutral coagulation bath. These results provide the suitable condition to load any types of drugs into the wet-spun fibers for drug delivery applications
The development and fabrication of hydrogels fibers has been carried out to evaluate their performance for drug delivery systems
Summary
122 Hydrogels structural scaffolds aim to serve as a synthetic extracellular matrix (ECM) to both guide cell growth in a controlled 3D pattern and directly apply certain stimuli which promotes this growth. These scaffolds and stimuli are tailored for specific tissue growth and applications and can vary greatly. A wide range of materials are known to be utilized as cell supporting materials in biomedical applications including natural and synthetic polymers, metals, ceramics and alloys [1]. Hydrogels including alginate and chitosan are introduced and explained as follows
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