Abstract

Laser-Based Additive Manufacturing for Tissue Engineering

Frederik Claeyssens, Senior Lecturer, Materials Science and Engineering, University of Sheffield

Additive Manufacturing (or 3D printing) is increasingly used in the production of biomedical implants. In particular, there is a growing research interest in using additive manufacturing for producing scaffolds for advanced tissue engineering constructs. This interest originates from the possibility to build 3D structured scaffolds with a user-defined macrostructure and porosity. This enables the production of 3D objects with tuneable mechanical properties and pore sizes, and opens up the possibility to produce patient specific implants. In my group we specialise in laser-based additive manufacturing techniques and specifically stereolithography to produce 3D structured biomaterials. In this process we use a UV light source to photocure a light sensitive resin in a spatially controlled manner to build up a 3D object. We produce biodegradable scaffolds with this techniques based on polycaprolactone, poly-lactic acid and poly-glycerol sebacate to be used as implants. Additionally, we use non-degradable materials for building 3D microenvironments for lab-on-a-chip devices with this technology. Recently, we have developed the expertise to combine stereolithography with emulsion templating, this enables additive manufacturing of inherently porous matrices (i.e. foams). This opens the route to hierarchical structured materials, where the structure can be independently controlled from nanometre to macroscopic length scales. We have used these scaffold materials for a number of different applications in recent years: (i) corneal tissue engineering, (ii) nerve guidance conduits and (iii) scaffolds for bone-on-a-chip devices.