The degradable porous scaffolds used today, mainly in research contexts, are far from optimal. Despite the fact that today we often use additive manufacturing and with high precision and repeatability can produce scaffolds, a lot of work and knowledge remains to obtain good tissue regeneration for each application.<br/>The mechanical properties are of course of incredible importance, but the surface and the interior are not of less importance. The interactions between the polymer and proteins as well as between the polymer and cells are largely controlled by the local environment such as local stiffness, roughness and wettability.<br/>In recent years, we have designed a scaffold for soft tissue regeneration by combining additive manufacturing and electrospinning. In this way, we have obtained mechanical properties that can initially protect the sensitive adipocytes and at the same time gained an interior that captures cells and creates an attractive and functional environment. We have used finite element analysis to predict the microscopic stiffnesses in the modular scaffold and we have characterized the surface roughness of the strands in detail using confocal laser scanning microscope. We have further developed our ability to control and optimize the local environment by functionalizing the degradable polymers with photosensitive motifs. Two different strategies have been developed to get a spatiotemporal control of growth factors and drug delivery. Altogether, the aim is to optimize the local environment in porous and degradable scaffolds for soft tissue regeneration.

Scaffold microenvironment manipulation; modular design strategy and spatiotemporal control of growth factors and drug delivery using scaffolds with photolytic properties

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