Biodegradable Scaffolds: The Future of Regenerative Medicine
The major goals in scaffold design are to select materials that degrade at a rate matching the regeneration process, have interconnected porous structures allowing cell infiltration and nutrient/waste exchange, and mechanical properties mimicking natural tissues. With intelligent material selection and fabrication techniques, scaffolds can be tailored for specific regenerative applications ranging from bone to cartilage to skin.
Advancing Scaffold Materials
Early Biodegradable Scaffolds utilized naturally-derived polymers like collagen, chitosan, fibrin and hyaluronic acid. While compatible with the body, they lacked strength and controllability. More recently, synthetic polymers such as polyesters, polyurethanes and polyphosphazenes have emerged with tunable degradation rates and mechanical properties. Combining natural and synthetic components into biocomposite scaffolds leads to synergistic effects balancing cellular interactions, mechanical integrity and degradation kinetics.
3D printing is revolutionizing scaffold fabrication by enabling complex microarchitectures precisely matching native tissues. Printing cells directly within 3D-printed scaffolds allows construction of living tissues from the bottom up. Self-assembling peptide scaffolds are also an exciting new area - these short protein fragments spontaneously organize into nanofibrous matrices mimicking the extracellular matrix. Additionally, incorporation of signaling molecules, growth factors and stem cells within scaffolds enhances regeneration by stimulating specific cellular behaviors.
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