Electrospinning scaffolds

Keywords Bioactive Biomaterials Biomimetic Cellular infiltration Electrospinning Extracellular matrix Hydrogels Nanofibers Polymer scaffolds Tissue... 

Fig. 2 Scaffold architecture affects cell binding and spreading. The examples were obtained by (a) phase separation/leaching combination and (b-d) electrospinning. Porosity data was roughly estimated note that classic nanofiber structure is <100 nm, but here is <1000 nm, as found commonly in biomedicine. Scale bars (a) 500 pm, (b-d) 10 pm. Top row. adapted from [12] bottom row. reprinted, with permission, from [47] copyright (2004) Elsevier [48] copyright (2010) Wiley-VCH...

H. Yoshimoto, Y.M. Shin, H. Terai, J.P. Vacanti. 2003. A biodegradable nanofiber scaffold by electrospinning and its potential for bone tissue engineering. Biomaterials, 24. pp. 2077. 

Keywords Bone Cardiovascular tissue engineering Electrospinning Microfibers Multiscale fibrous scaffolds Nanofibers Neural... 

Fig. 7 Setup for parallel plate electrospinning (a). Aligned nanofibrous scaffold produced by this method (b)...

The last method to be discussed, which is used to form polymer/ceramic composites by electrospinning, is extremely different to the methods previously described, but worth mentioning. Zuo et al. [129] used a method to create a composite scaffold that is actually the reverse of what most people are doing. Instead of mineralizing the nanofibers, Zuo et al. actually incorporated electrospun polymer nanofibers into a ceramic bone cement in order to form a composite scaffold. It was found that by incorporating electrospun nanofibers into the cement, the scaffold became less brittle and actually behaved similarly to that of a ductile material because of the fibers. Composite scaffolds with different polymers and fiber diameters were then tested in order to determine which scaffold demonstrated the most ideal mechanical properties. However, no cell studies were conducted and this method would most likely be used for a bone substitute instead of for bone regeneration applications. 

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