Novel synthetic biomaterials able to support direct tissue growth and retain cellular phenotypical properties are promising building blocks for the development of tissue engineering platforms for accurate and fast therapy screening for cancer. The aim of this study is to validate an aligned, pristine multi-walled carbon nanotube (CNT) platform for in vitro studies of pancreatic cancer as a systematic understanding of interactions between cells and these CNT substrates is lacking. Our results demonstrate that our CNT scaffolds-which are easily tuneable to form sheets/fibers-support growth, proliferation, and spatial organization of pancreatic cancer cells, indicating their great potential in cancer tissue engineering. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part B: Appl Biomater, 106B: 1637-1644, 2018.

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The effective growth of chondrocytes and the formation of cartilage is demonstrated on scaffolds of aligned carbon nanotubes; as two dimensional sheets and on three dimensional textiles. Raman spectroscopy is used to confirm the presence of chondroitin sulfate, which is critical in light of the unreliability of traditional dye based assays for carbon nanomaterial substrates. The textile exhibits a very high affinity for chondrocyte growth and could present a route to implantable, flexible cartilage scaffolds with tuneable mechanical properties

Development of biocompatible materials has great potential in biomedical engineering both for in vitro studies as well as for in vivo applications. Two-and three-dimensional carbon nanotube (CNT) substrates imitating and providing an extracellular matrix-like structure are promising constructs as cell-supporting scaffolds. Lately, they have received considerable interest in tissue engineering; however, cellular responses to nanoscale stimuli need to be better understood.Here, we present the preliminary results on the effect of CNT-based scaffolds on the proliferation and arrangement of primary canine chondrocytes (PCCs). We aim to develop scaffolding materials for the in vitro cultivation of normal and neoplastic cells with the ultimate objective of using them for applications such as tissue implants in cartilage repair and tissue regeneration after surgical intervention.In the proposed studies we aim to use an aerogel network of CNTs that has been drawn from a vertically aligned array as a synthetic substrate for the growth and alignment of primary canine chondrocytes. This aerogel consists of CNTs that are aligned parallel to the major axis of the CNTs; they have exceptionally low densities, are electrically and thermally conductive whilst maintaining very high tensile strength and elasticity. We are studying the cell growth, adhesion, morphology, viability and metabolism of cells seeded onto CNT substrates.Preliminary results to date have revealed that PCCs are capable of proliferating on CNT-based scaffolds, although the cell viability seems to be slightly decreased in comparison to the conventional 2D cell culture. Moreover, our nanosubstrates are able to induce directional cell growth of PCCs via aligning cells along CNTs. The latter is essential for in vivo application of nanosubstrates in tissue regeneration.