One of the continuing, persistent challenges confronting tissue engineering is the lack of intrinsic microvessels for the transportation of nutrients and metabolites. An artificial microvascular system can be a feasible solution to this problem. In this study, the femtosecond laser ablation technique was implemented for the fabrication of pillared microvessel scaffolds in PLGA. This novel scaffold enable the conventional cell seeding process to be implemented and the progress of cell growth to be observed in vitro by an optical microscopy. Hence, the milky and completely opaque problems of the conventional PLGA scaffold after cell seeding can be resolved. Currently, PLGA microvessel scaffolds consisting of 30μm×200μm pillared branches have been produced. Cell cultural results of BECs demonstrate that cells can well adhere and grow surrounding each branch of the proposed pillared microvessel networks. The promising results reveal that an artificial microvessel networks for tissue engineering can be completely realized.
Fabrication of Pillared PLGA Microvessel Scaffold Using Femtosecond Laser Ablation