Page 32 - Tailoring Electrospinning Techniques for Regenerative Medicine - Marc Simonet

CHAPTER 1
Cell infiltration is still reported as one of the main challenges in electrospinning for tissue engineering applications. To allow cell infiltration, the spacing between the sca old fibers has to be increased. In chapter 3 we introduce a new method to vastly increase this fiber to fiber spacing throughout the entire sca old thickness. Notably a method, which is not bound to a specific target or material.
Chapter 4 refines the method introduced in chapter 3 in order to tailor the increase in void space. Furthermore the e ect this method has on the void space and on cell infiltration in comparison to conventional spinning was investigated. Additionally, the mechanical properties of the electrospun meshes are compared to native tissue.
The two following chapters are more driven towards the application of electrospun sca olds for heart valve tissue engineering. chapter 5 gives an overview on the various heart valve sca old requirements and presents ways of achieving them by electrospinning. In chapter 6 we describe and apply some of these methods and steps and present a path of going from a polymer to a functional 3D in- situ heart valve sca old.
Discussion of the main findings in this thesis and remaining challenges in using electrospun sca old for tissue engineering can be found in chapter 7, together with speculation on the future of electrospinning and the application of electrospun sca olds in the tissue engineering and additive manufacturing field.
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