Preparation and characterization of better scaffolds for tissue engineering application

Abstract

Tissue engineering or regenerative medicine is an emerging multidisciplinary field involving biology, medicine and engineering that is likely to revolutionize the ways by which we improve the health and quality of life of millions of people worldwide by restoring, maintaining or enhancing the tissue and organ function. In addition to having a therapeutic application, where the tissue is either grown in a patient or outside the patient and transplanted, tissue engineering can have diagnostic applications where the tissue is made in vitro and used for testing drug metabolism and uptake, toxicity and pathogenicity. Designing tissue engineering scaffolds with the required mechanical properties and favourable microstructure to promote cell attachment, growth and new tissue formation is one of the key challenges facing the tissue engineering field. Due to its novel properties like biocompatibility, biodegradability, antibacterial and wound healing activity, chitosan based hybrid biopolymer scaffolds have emerged as a promising one in this direction. The enhanced mechanical strength and increased biocompatibility is attributed to the different constituents of chitosan based hybrid biopolymer scaffolds.