Since the early 60s, materials sciences experienced a boom with increasing knowledge in what nowadays is defined as nanotechnology. Despite the great advances in the field and the exploitation of this knowledge in applications such as electronics, optics, photonics and drug delivery systems, little has been translated into tissue engineering (TE) applications.<br/>TE is an emergent field that requires the use of designer biomaterial scaffolds to guide cell attachment, distribution, differentiation and the deposition of an extra cellular matrix (ECM) characteristic of the targeted tissue. Cells are capable of sensing characteristics such as patterned (bio)chemical, topographical and mechanical cues over their microenvironment. For example, the binding motifs on collagen-II account for a 67 nm periodicity in a 300 nm diameter fiber and span over a micrometer length, dictating the cell behavior as well as the mechanical properties of the bulk tissue. It is therefore of great importance the development of hierarchical polymeric bio(nano)materials whose physicochemical properties can be tuned mimicking the cell microenvironment and the overall macroscopic properties of the native tissue. Particularly, the spatial control of chemical and structural/topographical features at the nano- and micro- scale, which affect the overall functions of the macroscopic material.<br/>We have reviewed a series of scaffold fabrication techniques such as electrospinning, 3D printing or freeze-drying and combined them with self-assembling processes that lead to the fabrication of genuinely hierarchical scaffold materials with spatially controlled chemistries and structures (e.g., microporous systems, janus and gyrod, structures). These, can be further loaded with nanoparticles or functionalized introducing biochemical cues and tuning the specific cell-biomaterial interactions that direct the spatial cell organization and differentiation. The high versatility of these techniques offer the possibility to control spatially not only the presentation of features at the nano and micron scale, but also the fabrication of isotropic and anisotropic structures and their assembly into multi-layer systems that mimic the complex structural and mechanical properties of native tissues. The use of these materials in biology proved successful in terms of tissue regeneration and also as platforms to unravel complex cell-cell and cell-ECM interactions.<br/>

Designing materials as building blocks for life

256th National Meeting (2018)

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