Conventional and Recent Trends of Scaffolds Fabrication: A Superior Mode for Tissue Engineering

Abstract

Tissue regeneration is an auto-healing mechanism, initiating immediately following tissue damage to restore normal tissue structure and function. This falls in line with survival instinct being the most dominant instinct for any living organism. Nevertheless, the process is slow and not feasible in all tissues, which led to the emergence of tissue engineering (TE). TE aims at replacing damaged tissues with new ones. To do so, either new tissue is being cultured in vitro and then implanted, or stimulants are implanted into the target site to enhance endogenous tissue formation. Whichever approach is used, a matrix is used to support tissue growth, known as ‘scaffold’. In this review, an overall look at scaffolds fabrication is discussed, starting with design considerations and different biomaterials used. Following, highlights of conventional and advanced fabrication techniques are attentively presented. The future of scaffolds in TE is ever promising, with the likes of nanotechnology being investigated for scaffold integration. The constant evolvement of organoids and biofluidics with the eventual inclusion of organ-on-a-chip in TE has shown a promising prospect of what the technology might lead to. Perhaps the closest technology to market is 4D scaffolds following the successful implementation of 4D printing in other fields.

Biomaterials for Tissue Engineering Applications and Current Updates in the Field: A Comprehensive Review

“…4D printing arises as a recent technology, in which 3D printed scaffolds are made using smart materials that can modify their physical properties over time as a response to an external surrounding stimulus (like temperature, light, electricity, and pH) producing dynamic 3D structures. The changes in the static 3D scaffolds are considered the 4 th dimension [35,[192][193][194][195]. The major differences between 3 and 4D printing techniques are the feed and the instrument design.…”

“…To be noticed, ex vivo tissue engineering is the only way to develop nonregenerating tissues (e.g. cardiac and neural tissues), yet, the optimization and reproducibility of cell seeding conditions are not easy [34,35].…”

Effect of Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) Concentration on Polymeric Scaffolds Based on Blends of Poly-L-Lactic Acid (PLLA) and PHA Prepared via Thermally Induced Phase Separation (TIPS)

“…The scaffold porosity is a key parameter for tissue engineering applications. In this work, the scaffold porosity was calculated as the reciprocal of the ratio between the apparent density of the scaffold and the non-porous polymeric material density by using expression (2). The porosity values of the scaffolds, in the range of 86.5-92%, were found to be almost not affected by the PLLA/PHA blend composition (Figure 5A).…”

“…Over the recent years, large technological and scientific interest have dealt with the possibility of controlling polymer foams products to be employed as scaffolds for tissue engineering applications [1][2][3]. Many techniques have been developed to produce porous tissue engineering scaffolds, such as porogen leaching [4,5], freeze drying [6,7], 3D printing [8][9][10], electrospinning [11][12][13], thermally induced phase separation (TIPS) [14][15][16] and any possible combinations of these [17].…”

New Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide-butylacrylate) Copolymer Biointerfaces and Their Characteristic Influence on Cell Behavior In Vitro

“…Despite the progress made in recent decades regarding interdisciplinary research in the development of biomaterials and biointerface design, obtaining materials with controlled characteristics still represents one of the primary key points to be developed and understood in biomedical applications [ 1 , 2 ]. Therefore, designing and tailoring new material biointerface characteristics is correlated to the engineering and manufacturing processes, as well as to the rigorous surface characterization [ 3 , 4 ].…”