PEOT/PBT Polymeric Pastes to Fabricate Additive Manufactured Scaffolds for Tissue Engineering.

The advantages of additive manufactured scaffolds, as custom-shaped structures with a completely interconnected and accessible pore network from the micro- to the macroscale, are nowadays well established in tissue engineering. Pore volume and architecture can be designed in a controlled fashion, resulting in a modulation of scaffold's mechanical properties and in an optimal nutrient perfusion determinant for cell survival. However, the success of an engineered tissue architecture is often linked to its surface properties as well.

Tailorable Surface Morphology of 3D Scaffolds by Combining Additive Manufacturing with Thermally Induced Phase Separation.

The functionalization of biomaterials substrates used for cell culture is gearing towards an increasing control over cell activity. Although a number of biomaterials have been successfully modified by different strategies to display tailored physical and chemical surface properties, it is still challenging to step from 2D substrates to 3D scaffolds with instructive surface properties for cell culture and tissue regeneration. In this study, additive manufacturing and thermally induced phase separation are combined to create 3D scaffolds with tunable surface morphology from polymer gels.

Physicochemical properties and mineralization assessment of porous polymethylmethacrylate cement loaded with hydroxyapatite in simulated body fluid.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) as a pore generator and hydroxyapatite (HA) as an osteoconductive agent on the physicochemical properties and in-vitro mineralization ability of porous polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) cement. To this end, various compositions of PMMA cements, which differed in amount of millimeter-sized hydroxyapatite (HA) particles and CMC hydrogel, were prepared and immersed into simulated body fluid (SBF) for 0, 7, 14, 21 and 28 days. It was demonstrated that the incorporation of CMC hydrogel decreased the maximum temperature of cement to the normal body temperature and prolonged the handling time during polymerization.

Physicochemical properties and in vitro mineralization of porous polymethylmethacrylate cement loaded with calcium phosphate particles.

The main goal of this study was to evaluate the effects of incorporation of calcium phosphate (CaP) particles on the physicochemical properties and mineralization capacity of cements in vitro. Herein, two different types of CaP particles were loaded into polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) cements exhibiting an interconnected porosity created by mixing with carboxymethylcellulose. The incorporation of CaP particles did not influence the maximum polymerization temperature of the porous PMMA, but reduced the porosity and the average pore size.

The effect of scaffold-cell entrapment capacity and physico-chemical properties on cartilage regeneration.

An important tenet in designing scaffolds for regenerative medicine consists in mimicking the dynamic mechanical properties of the tissues to be replaced to facilitate patient rehabilitation and restore daily activities. In addition, it is important to determine the contribution of the forming tissue to the mechanical properties of the scaffold during culture to optimize the pore network architecture. Depending on the biomaterial and scaffold fabrication technology, matching the scaffolds mechanical properties to articular cartilage can compromise the porosity, which hampers tissue formation.