Fabrication and Characterization of Sphere-templated Fibrin Scaffolding

摘要

The aim of this study was to characterize the morphological and mechanical properties of a novel scaffolding material. We were able to show that PMMA sphere templates allow for very reproducible pore sizes and interconnectedness of the fibrin hydrogel. Also, the templating procedure did not cause any loss in strength of the bulk properties of the material. We were also able to show that the processing of the scaffold did not leave behind any cytotoxic byproducts that would be detrimental to future tissue engineering applications. This fibrin templating method can be tailored for a number of applications in the future including the creation of larger sized pores (100-500 μm) for bone tissue engineering or small pores (20-50 μm) for increased angiogenesis.