Bioinspired scaffold for regenerative medicine: production engineering and scaffold characterization

Scaffolds play a pivotal role in the tissue engineering paradigm, as they provide an extra-cellular matrices onto which cells can attach, grow, and form new tissues. Cell-seeded scaffolds can either be cultured in vitro, or directly implanted in vivo, using the body's own system as a bioreactor. The efficacy of the first approach is often questioned due to requirement for at least two surgical procedures and the delay in treatment while the construct is being cultured in vitro before implantation. Thus, the desired biological scaffold performance has consequently shifted from a passive role, where scaffolds were merely accepted by the body, to an active role in which they instruct their biological surroundings in a predictable and controlled fashion. Due to the primary importance of scaffold design, one of the challenges in tissue engineering is to reproduce an analog of the in vivo scenario, mimicking the microenvironment that promote cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions. Between the main issues that need to be considered in the engineering of functional constructs, material selection, tissue specific micro-architecture design and developing methods for scaffolds fabrication, are often included. Aim of this thesis is to explore alternative strategies for the development of bioactive scaffolds, off-the-shelf available and intended to be used to guide tissue regeneration, exploiting the endogenous regenerative abilities of the body. This challenge has been addressed by combining the synthesis of novel biologically inspired design with innovative production techniques, in order to optimize scaffold architecture, composition and mechanical properties, leading to what would more conventionally be termed a "smart scaffold".