Several types of microcarriers suitable for large-scale cultivation of mammalian cells are commercially available. However, many of these carriers have disadvantages, e.g., the need for enzymatic digestion for cell harvesting, size limitations and insufficient biocompatibility. These limitations have been overcome by the development of collagen-coated Ba(2+)-alginate microcarriers. Ba(2+)-algin...

Porous microcarriers were fabricated from synthesized poly(γ-benzyl-L-glutamate) (PBLG) polymer to engineer adipose tissue with lobule-like structure via the injectable approach. The adipogenic differentiation of human adipose-derived stem cells (hASCs) seeded on porous PBLG microcarriers was determined by adipogenic gene expression and glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase enzyme activity. In vit...

The simultaneous expansion and harvest of hematopoietic stem cells and mesenchymal stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood were carried out using bioreactors. The co-culture of umbilical cord blood (UCB)-derived hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) was performed within spinner flasks and a rotating wall vessel (RWV) bioreactor using glass-coated styrene copolym...

Fetal chondrocytes (FCs) have recently been identified as an alternative cell source for cartilage tissue engineering applications because of their partially chondrogenically differentiated phenotype and developmental plasticity. In this study, chondrocytes derived from fetal bovine cartilage were characterized and then cultured on commercially available Cytodex-1 and Biosilon microcarriers and...

The therapeutic effectiveness and biological relevance of technologies based on adherent cells depend platforms that enable long-term culture in controlled environments. Liquid-core capsules have been suggested as semipermeable moieties with spatial homogeneity due to the high mobility all components their core. lack cell-adhesive sites liquid-core structures often hampers use for stem cell-bas...

In this study, we have developed 50- to 100-µm-sized titanium phosphate glass microcarriers (denoted as Ti5) that show enhanced proliferation of human mesenchymal stem cells and MG63 osteosarcoma cells, as well as enhanced human mesenchymal stem cell expression of bone differentiation markers, in comparison with commercially available glass microspheres at all time points. We also demonstrate t...

The use of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in tissue repair and regeneration despite their multipotentiality has been limited by their cell source quantity and decelerating proliferative yield efficiency. A study was thus undertaken to determine the feasibility of using microcarrier beads in spinner flask cultures for MSCs expansion and compared to that of conventional monolayer cultures and stat...

In order to control their release, drugs are encapsulated into systems which are expected to provide a certain site with a predetermined amount of drug over a well-defined period of time. Here we report on a multi-component drug delivery biomaterial that consists of a hydrogel matrix in which drug-loaded biodegradable microcarriers are dispersed, and whose potential applications could be found ...

Diatom silica microcapsules prepared by purification of diatomaceous earth (DE) were functionalised by dopamine modified iron-oxide nanoparticles, in order to introduce diatoms with magnetic properties. The application of magnetised diatoms as magnetically guided drug delivery microcarriers has been demonstrated.

In his article on poetry in health care education, Neil Pickering puts forward an argument of radical unpredictability: as we can never know in advance how a poem will be interpreted, it can be of no external use.(1) It is, however, exactly this potential to give rise to multiple interpretations that makes the poem valuable. We hold that the poem should be read and discussed with no other inten...