An ionically crosslinked hydrogel containing vancomycin coating on a porous scaffold for drug delivery and cell culture.

The aim of this study was to prepare and characterize a scaffold with an ionically crosslinked hydrogel coating layer containing a water-soluble drug, vancomycin, via a novel drug loading method for sustained drug delivery and surface modification. The poly(D,L-lactide acid) (PDLLA)/biphasic calcium phosphate (BCP) scaffold with a highly inter-connected porous structure was fabricated by a particle-leaching/thermally induced phase separation (TIPS) method. The pre-vacuumized scaffold was immersed into an alginate/vancomycin solution.