Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Condyle Scaffold Design
From CT Data
Fabricated PCL Scaffold
Scaffold Implanted to
replace Minipig condyle
Fig. 13.5
A designer scaffold, made from a minipig computer tomography(CT) scan providing the
data for the fabrication of the polycaprolactone (PCL) scaffold (see also Fig. 15.3). Implantation
of the scaffold to replace the minipig's condyle (shown at the picture at right) has been secured by
screwing it to place. Adapted from http://www.mem.drexel.edu/biomanufacturing. Reprinted with
permission from Nature Publishing Group
nanofibrous scaffolds for tissue engineering. The methods used are (a)
electrospin-
ning
, where an electric field is used to draw a polymer solution from an orifice to
a spinning collector, producing fibers with diameters in the range of nanometers
to micrometers, (b)
molecular self-assembly
, in which supramolecular architectures
are formed, utilizing noncovalent bonding, electrostatic, and hydrophobic interac-
tions [
421
], and (c)
specific TIPS technique
, comprising polymer dissolution, phase
separation and gelation, solvent extraction, freezing, and freeze-drying under vac-
uum [
411
]. The fiber assemblies, produced by these techniques, should subsequently
be treated with particulate leaching or other porogenic techniques for the formation
of the necessary interconnecting pores.
As probably expected, combination of fabrication techniques are also used to
create either polymeric-ceramic nanocomposite scaffolds, for example by soaking a
prefabricated polymer scaffold in SBF in order to allow nanoscale apatite crystals
to grow onto its pore surfaces [
411
], or by using a layer-by-layer self-assembly
technique, to deposit gelatine on polylactide nanofibers, or combining 3D fiber
depositing (periodical macrofibers) with electrospinning (microfibers), each type of
fibers serving a complementary purpose [
411
,
422
].
Some protocols on specific scaffold fabrication technologies can be found in a
recent publication [
423
].
