Abstract
The most promising approach in Tissue Engineering involves the seeding of porous, biocompatible/biodegradable scaffolds, with donor cells to promote tissue regeneration. Additive biomanufacturing processes are increasingly recognized as ideal techniques to produce 3D structures with optimal pore size and spatial distribution, providing an adequate mechanical support for tissue regeneration while shaping in-growing tissues. This paper presents a novel extrusion-based system to produce 3D scaffolds with controlled internal/external geometry for TE applications.The BioExtruder is a low-cost system that uses a proper fabrication code based on the ISO programming language enabling the fabrication of multimaterial scaffolds. Poly(ε-caprolactone) was the material chosen to produce porous scaffolds, made by layers of directionally aligned microfilaments. Chemical, morphological, and in vitro biological evaluation performed on the polymeric constructs revealed a high potential of the BioExtruder to produce 3D scaffolds with regular and reproducible macropore architecture, without inducing relevant chemical and biocompatibility alterations of the material.
Highlights
Scaffolds are support structures used in tissue engineering to provide the three-dimensional growth of cells in an organized way
Large pores and highly porous structures are required to promote in vivo direct osteogenesis, while smaller pores result in osteochondral ossification
This paper investigates the use of a novel BioExtruder system to produce polymeric scaffolds for tissue engineering applications, by examining the effect of the processing conditions in terms of the chemical-physical properties and biocompatibility of the processed polymeric material
Summary
Scaffolds are support structures used in tissue engineering to provide the three-dimensional growth of cells in an organized way. This paper investigates the use of a novel BioExtruder system to produce polymeric scaffolds for tissue engineering applications, by examining the effect of the processing conditions in terms of the chemical-physical properties and biocompatibility of the processed polymeric material. It is a highly reproducible and low-cost system enabling the controlled definition of pores into the scaffold to modulate mechanical strength and molecular diffusion, as well the fabrication of multimaterial scaffolds It comprises two different deposition systems: one rotational system for multimaterial deposition acted by a pneumatic mechanism and another one for a single material deposition that uses a screw to assist the deposition process (Figure 1). The Bioextruder opens new perspectives regarding the fabrication of these so called functionally graded scaffolds by enabling the deposition of different materials at specific layers or by manipulating porosity and pore size/shape through a set of process parameters
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