Developing 3D Scaffolds in the Field of Tissue Engineering to Treat Complex Bone Defects

Abstract Polymers have been extensively used to develop 3D scaffolds in the field of tissue engineering and consist of certain design requirements such as biocompatibility, structural properties, and varying porosity inside of complex geometries, all with the ultimate goal of incorporating living cells within the scaffold structure. In this work, we present the synthesis and material characterization of hybrid spools using polycaprolactone (PCL) as the base polymer. We demonstrate that a commercial 3D Fused Deposition Modeling printer such as MakerBot can be used to print 3D scaffolds using three types of polymer spools: PCL, PCL-poly lactic acid, and PCL-hydroxyapatite. Data derived from computer tomography can be used to develop hollow porous cages using PCL. Finally, we demonstrate that log-pile scaffolds are capable of being infused with a mixture of living cells and gelatin hydrogel and that high cellular viability is maintained throughout the printed structure. This work could be potentially useful ...

[1]  Joseph Kost,et al.  Handbook of Biodegradable Polymers , 1998 .

[2]  Dietmar Werner Hutmacher,et al.  Application of micro CT and computation modeling in bone tissue engineering , 2005, Comput. Aided Des..

[3]  A. Bandyopadhyay,et al.  Bone tissue engineering using 3D printing , 2013 .

[4]  A.C.W. Lau,et al.  Precision extruding deposition and characterization of cellular poly‐ε‐caprolactone tissue scaffolds , 2004 .

[5]  N. Selvamurugan,et al.  Biocomposites containing natural polymers and hydroxyapatite for bone tissue engineering. , 2010, International journal of biological macromolecules.

[6]  Paulo Jorge Da Silva bartolo,et al.  Fabrication and characterisation of PCL and PCL/PLA scaffolds for tissue engineering , 2014 .

[7]  Jung-Woog Shin,et al.  Scaffolds for bone tissue engineering fabricated from two different materials by the rapid prototyping technique: PCL versus PLGA , 2012, Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Medicine.

[8]  Jing Lim,et al.  Review: development of clinically relevant scaffolds for vascularised bone tissue engineering. , 2013, Biotechnology advances.

[9]  Wei Sun,et al.  Fabrication of three-dimensional polycaprolactone/hydroxyapatite tissue scaffolds and osteoblast-scaffold interactions in vitro. , 2007, Biomaterials.

[10]  A. Zhang,et al.  Digital microfabrication of user‐defined 3D microstructures in cell‐laden hydrogels , 2013, Biotechnology and bioengineering.

[11]  M. Viana,et al.  Fabrication of porous substrates: a review of processes using pore forming agents in the biomaterial field. , 2008, Journal of pharmaceutical sciences.

[12]  Minna Kellomäki,et al.  A review of rapid prototyping techniques for tissue engineering purposes , 2008, Annals of medicine.

[13]  A. Atala Engineering tissues, organs and cells , 2007, Journal of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.

[14]  P Zioupos,et al.  Mechanical properties and the hierarchical structure of bone. , 1998, Medical engineering & physics.

[15]  Sandra Downes,et al.  Physicochemical characterisation of novel ultra-thin biodegradable scaffolds for peripheral nerve repair , 2009, Journal of materials science. Materials in medicine.

[16]  I. Gibson,et al.  State of the art and future direction of additive manufactured scaffolds-based bone tissue engineering , 2014 .

[17]  Shanhui Fan,et al.  Direct‐Write Assembly of Three‐Dimensional Photonic Crystals: Conversion of Polymer Scaffolds to Silicon Hollow‐Woodpile Structures , 2006 .

[18]  Antonios G Mikos,et al.  Open-source three-dimensional printing of biodegradable polymer scaffolds for tissue engineering. , 2014, Journal of biomedical materials research. Part A.

[19]  Colleen L Flanagan,et al.  Bone tissue engineering using polycaprolactone scaffolds fabricated via selective laser sintering. , 2005, Biomaterials.

[20]  D. Hutmacher,et al.  Scaffolds in tissue engineering bone and cartilage. , 2000, Biomaterials.

[21]  A. Khademhosseini,et al.  Cell-laden microengineered gelatin methacrylate hydrogels. , 2010, Biomaterials.

[22]  Dietmar W Hutmacher,et al.  Scaffold-based tissue engineering: rationale for computer-aided design and solid free-form fabrication systems. , 2004, Trends in biotechnology.

[23]  Malcolm N. Cooke,et al.  Use of stereolithography to manufacture critical-sized 3D biodegradable scaffolds for bone ingrowth. , 2003, Journal of biomedical materials research. Part B, Applied biomaterials.

[24]  Jingyan Dong,et al.  High-precision flexible fabrication of tissue engineering scaffolds using distinct polymers , 2012, Biofabrication.

[25]  Peter Dubruel,et al.  A review of trends and limitations in hydrogel-rapid prototyping for tissue engineering. , 2012, Biomaterials.