Peripheral nerve growth within a hydrogel microchannel scaffold supported by a kink-resistant conduit.

Nerve repair in several mm-long nerve gaps often requires an interventional technology. Microchannel scaffolds have proven effective for bridging nerve gaps and guiding axons in the peripheral nervous system (PNS). Nonetheless, fabricating microchannel scaffolds at this length scale remains a challenge and/or is time consuming and cumbersome.

Characterizing the degradation of alginate hydrogel for use in multilumen scaffolds for spinal cord repair.

Alginate was studied as a degradable nerve guidance scaffold material in vitro and in vivo. In vitro degradation rates were determined using rheology to measure the change in shear modulus vs time. The shear modulus decreased from 155 kPa to 5 kPa within 2 days; however, alginate samples maintained their superficial geometry for over 28 days.

Brain derived neurotrophic factor release from layer-by-layer coated agarose nerve guidance scaffolds.

Agarose nerve guidance scaffolds (NGS) seeded with cells expressing brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) have demonstrated robust nerve regeneration in the rat central nervous system. The purpose of this work was to explore whether agarose NGS coated with hydrogen-bonded layer-by-layer (HLbL) could provide an acellular method of delivering prolonged and consistent dosages of active BDNF. Our results show that HLbL-coated agarose NGS could release BDNF over 10days in consistent dosages averaging 80.