Scaffold design and fabrication

This chapter outlines the sequence of events in the formation of a tissue engineered construct, and the changes in important factors with time. It describes the key rationale, characteristics, and process parameters of the currently used scaffold fabrication techniques. Scaffolds are of great importance for tissue engineering since they enable the fabrication of functional living implants out of cells obtained from cell culture. As the scaffolds for tissue engineering will eventually be implanted in the human body, the scaffold materials should be nonantigenic, noncarcinogenic, nontoxic, nonteratogenic and possess high cell/tissue biocompatibility so that they will not trigger pathological reactions after implantation. Apart from biomaterial issues, the macro- and micro-structural properties of the scaffold are also very important. In general, the scaffolds require individual external shape and well-defined internal structure with interconnected porosity to host most cell types.