Progress in the Advancement of Porous Biopolymer Scaffold: Tissue Engineering Application

Abstract

Tissue engineering is a derivative of biomedical engineering, which deals with the repair and regeneration of organs or their tissues. Cell-embedded porous polymeric scaffolds unveil proficiency in rectifying the mechanical trauma of skin, bone erosion, and neurodegenerative diseases like spinal cord injury. Archetypically, pristine cell-based biomaterial scaffolds are utilized; however, investigations over time have validated that incorporation of additives such as silver nanoparticles or bioactive glass augments antimicrobial characteristics in conjunction with cell adherence. An ideal scaffold should exhibit ease of processability, biocompatibility, biodegradability, noncytotoxicity, and excellent mechanical property, and these properties can be achieved with biodegradable polymers. Researchers have extensively explored copious advanced as well as conventional fabrication technologies such as electrospinning, 3D and 4D bioprinting, among others, for contouring of porous polymeric scaffolds in tissue-engineering functions like skin, bone, liver, cardiac, and neural tissue regeneration, which we have consolidated and discussed in the presented Review.