Coaxial silk-based electrospun mats for controlled growth factor delivery.
Fanti, Ellen.
2012
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Abstract: Engineered
tissue is needed to repair defects of the human body that organ transplantation cannot
satisfy. Scaffold design for tissue engineering is continually evolving and there is a
recent effort to develop bioactive scaffolds that offer growth factor delivery to
defective sites in vivo. Electrospinning is an attractive means of processing bioactive
scaffolds because their nanoscale ... read morefeatures resemble that of the naturally occurring ECM
and they have a large surface area, offering embedded biomolecules short diffusion
pathways and good contact with cells. The goal of this work was to prepare a bioactive
silk-based electrospun mat that offers more controlled release of incorporated proteins
compared to blend electrospun mats. To achieve this goal, coaxial electrospinning was
used to process polyethylene oxide (PEO)-silk core-shell nanofibers. A coaxial
electrospinning system was designed and implemented to effectively encapsulate the model
protein BSA. Core-shell morphology was confirmed with SEM, TEM, and confocal microscopy.
An evaluation of BSA release from the core of the nanofibers showed that the coaxial
electrospun mats significantly suppressed the observed burst release of the incorporated
protein compared to blend electrospun mats. These results indicate that coaxial
electrospun silk-based mats may be a viable bioactive scaffold for controlled growth
factor delivery.
Thesis (M.S.)--Tufts University, 2012.
Submitted to the Dept. of Biomedical Engineering.
Advisor: David Kaplan.
Committee: Catherine Kuo, and Gary Leisk.
Keyword: Biomedical engineering.read less - ID:
- k930c832b
- Component ID:
- tufts:21099
- To Cite:
- TARC Citation Guide EndNote
