4D polycarbonates via stereolithography as scaffolds for soft tissue repair

Abstract

Abstract3D printing has emerged as one of the most promising tools to overcome the processing and morphological limitations of traditional tissue engineering scaffold design. However, there is a need for improved minimally invasive, void-filling materials to provide mechanical support, biocompatibility, and surface erosion characteristics to ensure consistent tissue support during the healing process. Herein, soft, elastomeric aliphatic polycarbonate-based materials were designed to undergo photopolymerization into supportive soft tissue engineering scaffolds. The 4D nature of the printed scaffolds is manifested in their shape memory properties, which allows them to fill model soft tissue voids without deforming the surrounding material. In vivo, adipocyte lobules were found to infiltrate the surface-eroding scaffold within 2 months, and neovascularization was observed over the same time. Notably, reduced collagen capsule thickness indicates that these scaffolds are highly promising for adipose tissue engineering and repair.

3D printed elastomers with Sylgard-184-like mechanical properties and tuneable degradability

“…19 However, there are only a few examples of biodegradable photopolymers that are suitable for SLA or DLP 3D printing of elastomers with tuneable mechanical properties. [20][21][22][23] In general, most of the biodegradable photopolymers designed for SLA or DLP (e.g., acrylated poly(lactide) (PLA) 24,25 or poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) 26 ) have low molecular weights (MW, typically 600-3000 g mol −1 ) in order to keep the viscosity of the resin low, resulting in brittle 3D printed products (tensile strain <50%). Grijpma, Seppälä et al showed that at higher MW, the photopolymers become solid and almost unprintable at room temperature.…”

“…19 However, there are only a few examples of biodegradable photopolymers that are suitable for SLA or DLP 3D printing of elastomers with tuneable mechanical properties. 20–23…”

Challenges and Opportunities in 3D Printing of Biodegradable Medical Devices by Emerging Photopolymerization Techniques

“…For example, the photopolymerizable groups can be introduced by the side-group functionalization of ROP monomers, allowing the control of the photocrosslinkable sites in the resulting polymers. [82,83] More polymeric topologies (i.e., bottlebrush and hyperbranched polymers) that are rarely reported for photopolymerization 3D printing but exhibit potentially low intrinsic viscosity could also be investigated. [84,85] Random and block copolymerizations can provide various opportunities for further tuning the mechanical properties of the crosslinked networks.…”

Shape memory poly (glycerol sebacate)‐based electrospun fiber scaffolds for tissue engineering applications: A review

“…Further, they are smart materials with the shape memory characteristics which do not give impact or without deforming the surrounding environment. As a DMA uniaxial tensioncompressed to 80% strain and allowed to recover at 37 C in PBS [27] result, they are more efficient and smarter than typical materials.…”