Computational Design, Freeform Fabrication and Testing of Nylon-6 Tissue Engineering Scaffolds
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Computational Design, Freeform Fabrication and Testing of Nylon-6 Tissue Engineering Scaffolds Suman Das1, Scott J. Hollister2, Colleen Flanagan2, Adebisi Adewunmi1, Karlin Bark1, Cindy Chen1, Krishnan Ramaswamy1, Daniel Rose1, Erwin Widjaja1 1 Mechanical Engineering Department 2 Biomedical Engineering Department University of Michigan 2350 Hayward St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2125 ABSTRACT Advanced and novel fabrication methods are needed to build complex three-dimensional scaffolds that incorporate multiple functionally graded biomaterials with a porous internal architecture that will enable the simultaneous growth of multiple tissues, tissue interfaces and blood vessels. The aim of this research is to develop, demonstrate and characterize techniques for fabricating such scaffolds by combining solid freeform fabrication and computational design methods. When fully developed, such techniques are expected to enable the fabrication of tissue engineering scaffolds endowed with functionally graded material composition and porosity exhibiting sharp or smooth gradients. As a first step towards realizing this goal, scaffolds with periodic cellular and biomimetic architectures were designed and fabricated using selective laser sintering in Nylon-6, a biocompatible polymer. Results of bio-compatibility and in vivo implantation studies conducted on these scaffolds are reported. INTRODUCTION Tissue engineering [1, 2] is an interdisciplinary field that combines engineering and life sciences to develop techniques that enable the restoration, maintenance or enhancement of living tissues and organs. A majority of these techniques utilize three-dimensional scaffold structures composed of natural or synthetic polymers [3-10]. These scaffold structures are typically endowed with complex internal architecture, channels and porosity that provide sites for cell attachment and proliferation, as well as for conveying cells, growth factors and biomolecular signals to promote tissue regeneration at an implantation site. The composition of most tissue engineering scaffolds is such that the scaffolding material is biodegradable, and it erodes away over time after implantation, eventually being replaced by newly formed tissue. Recently, solid freeform fabrication (SFF) [11] methods have been employed for fabricating bioimplants and tissue engineering scaffolds [12-20]. In principle, SFF methods are capable of constructing three-dimensional scaffolds with complex architectures incorporating multiple, functionally graded bio-materials and porosity. The overall goal of our research is to develop homogenization theory based computational design techniques and laser sintering based freeform fabrication methods for constructing such heterogeneous tissue engineering scaffolds using multiple biomaterials. This goal is to be achieved via the following three research objectives. First, computational techniques are being developed to locally optimize scaffold architecture, material composition and mechanical properties yielding three-dimensional dig
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