Hydrogels have shown great potential for cartilage tissue engineering applications due to their capability to encapsulate cells within biomimetic, 3-dimensional (3D) microenvironments. However, the multi-step fabrication process that is necessary to produce cell/scaffold constructs with defined dimensions, limits their off-the-shelf translational usage. In this study, we have developed a hybrid...

Convection enhanced delivery (CED) can improve the spatial distribution of drugs delivered directly to the brain. In CED, drugs are infused locally into tissue through a needle or catheter inserted into brain parenchyma. Transport of the infused material is dominated by convection, which enhances drug penetration into tissue compared with diffusion mediated delivery. We have fabricated and char...

PURPOSE: The current gold standard for the repair of segmental bone defects is autologous bone grafts or flaps, however these are limited by donor site morbidity, limited graft tissue availability, and potential for complications at the harvest site. ASCs (adipose derived stem cells) have potential to aid bone regeneration due to their ability to differentiate into osteoblasts. BMP-2 (bone morp...

Biodegradable polymers and bioactive ceramics are being combined in a variety of composite materials for tissue engineering scaffolds. Materials and fabrication routes for three-dimensional (3D) scaffolds with interconnected high porosities suitable for bone tissue engineering are reviewed. Different polymer and ceramic compositions applied and their impact on biodegradability and bioactivity o...

The objective of this study is to develop an osteoinductive scaffold which enables the controlled release of bone morphogenetic protein (BMP)-2. A biodegradable gelatin sponge incorporating 50 wt% of btricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) was fabricated to investigate the osteoinduction activity. The sponge prepared had an interconnected pore structure with an average pore size of 200 mm. The in vivo re...

Dextran is a versatile biomacromolecule for preparing electrospun nanofibrous membranes by blending with either water-soluble bioactive agents or hydrophobic biodegradable polymers for biomedical applications. In this study, an antibacterial electrospun scaffold was prepared by electrospinning of a solution composed of dextran, polyurethane (PU) and ciprofloxacin HCl (CipHCl) drug. The obtained...

Macroporous scaffolds with controllable pore structure and mechanical properties were fabricated by a porogen fusion technique. Biodegradable material poly (d, l-lactide) (PDLLA) was used as the scaffold matrix. The effects of porogen size, PDLLA concentration and hydroxyapatite (HA) content on the scaffold morphology, porosity and mechanical properties were investigated. High porosity (90% and...

For engineering implantable liver tissues, we designed a new scaffold with a three-dimensional (3D) branching and joining flow channel network (inner diameter is 1 mm) described by accumulated unit tetrahedrons (edge length is 4 mm). For its fabrication, biodegradable polycaprolactone (PCL) and 80% (w/w) of NaCl salt particles as a porogen were completely mixed and applied to the selective lase...

Poly(1,8-octanediol-co-citric acid) (POC) is a synthetic biodegradable elastomer that can be processed into three-dimensional (3D) scaffolds for tissue engineering. We investigated the effect of designed porosity on the mechanical properties, permeability, and degradation profiles of the POC scaffolds. For mechanical properties, scaffold compressive data were fitted to a one-dimensional (1D) no...

Blends of biodegradable polymers, poly(caprolactone) and poly(D, L-lactic-co-glycolic acid), have been examined as scaffolds for applications in bone tissue engineering. Hydroxyapatite granules have been incorporated into the blends and porous discs were prepared. Mechanical properties and degradation rates in vitro of the composites were determined. The discs were seeded with rabbit bone marro...