Patterned Electrospun Nanofibers For Tissue Scaffolds

Julie Chen, Mechanical Engineering

Electrospinning leads to the production of continuous micro- and nanofibers from solutions driven exclusively by an electric field. Over the past decade, there here has been a significant growth of research activity, as well as commercial fabrication, utilizing electrospinning. Recently some studies have focused on obtaining organized electrospun structures designed for specific tissue engineering applications. It has been demonstrated that such structures provide sufficient mechanical properties and support of cell growth for tissue engineering. Despite this considerable growth in research activity, many fundamental questions remain about both (1) the desired nanofiber scaffold architecture for encouraging growth of specific tissue structures, and (2) the process control, avoiding the Edisonian-type procedure, requiring offline and tedious electron microscopy imaging to characterize the fibers. In this study different 2D and 3D fibrous scaffold architectures –e.g., aligned, cross-patterned and twisted yarn– are presented. Moreover, preliminary results from on-line measurements techniques for comprehensive understanding of electrospinning fundamental dynamics for repeatable and continuous spinning are demonstrated.