The most important issue in fabricated scaffolds in tissue engineering is to reproduce both the mechanical and chemical ECM properties, in order to promote cells adhesion and proliferation. In particular a specific issue seems to be important in cells reproduction, is the environment in which cells are seeded. In order to realize an artificial construct able to mimic the EMC properties, many materials have been studied and used in years, and recently the attention has undergone to hydrogel. The reason on hydrogel's fame is due to their viscoelastic characteristics, biocompatibility, easiness of fabrication in different shapes, and quickly mass transfer between nutrients and cells.In this paper we have optimized the working conditions in order to realize a well defined hydrogel scaffold, with a specific shape and tuning mechanical properties using a novel microfabrication technique developed and patented in our laboratory, PAM system. Moreover the microfabricated Three-Dimensional (3D) alginate scaffold was designed and characterized in order to include cells.
Annalisa Tirella, Giovanni Vozzi, Arti Ahluwalia, "Biomimicry of PAM Microfabricated Hydrogel Scaffold" in Proc. IS&T Int'l Conf. on Digital Printing Technologies and Digital Fabrication (NIP24), 2008, pp 496 - 500, https://doi.org/10.2352/ISSN.2169-4451.2008.24.1.art00010_2