Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2016
In the field of tissue engineering, design and fabrication of precisely andspatially patterned, highly porous scaffolds/matrixes are required to guideoverall shape of tissue growth and replacement. Although rapid prototypingfabrication techniques have been used to fabricate the scaffolds with desireddesign characteristics, controlling the interior architecture of the scaffoldshas been a challenge due to Computer-aided Design (CAD) constrains. Moreover,thick engineered tissue scaffolds show inadequate success due to the limiteddiffusion of oxygen and nutrients to the interior part of the scaffolds. Theselimitations lead to improper tissue regeneration. In this work, in order toovercome these design and fabrication limitations, research has been expanded togeneration of scaffolds which have inbuilt micro and nanoscale fluidic channels.Branching channels serve as material delivery paths to provide oxygen andnutrients for the cells. These channels are designed and controlled withLindenmayer Systems (L-Systems) which is an influential way to create thecomplex branching networks by rewriting process. In this research, through thecomputational modeling process, to control the thickness, length, number and theposition of the channels/branches, main attributes of L-Systems algorithms arecharacterized and effects of algorithm parameters are investigated. After theL-System based branching design is completed, 3D tissue scaffolds werefabricated by “UV-Maskless Photolithography”. In thisfabrication technique, Polyethylene (glycol) Diacrylate (PEGDA), which isbiodegradable and biocompatible polymer, was used as a fabrication material. Ourresults show that L-System parameters can be successfully controlled to designof 3D tissue engineered scaffolds. Our fabrication results also show thatL-System based designed scaffolds with internal branch structures can befabricated layer-by-layer fashion by Maskless Photolithography. This technologycan be easily applied to engineering living systems.