Towards Clinical Translation of Melt Electrowritten Scaffolds: Visualisation of USPIO Labelled Polycaprolactone Scaffolds by Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Melt electrowriting (MEW) is an advanced fibre forming technology for 3D printing of complex scaffold architectures, which have convincingly shown their potential in cardiovascular constructs.1,2 Driven by electrohydrodynamic forces, a polymer fibre jet is digitally controlled to form microfibrous scaffolds via a direct writing approach. Clinical translation of such grafts requires establishing monitoring options, such as with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Consequently, this work proposes the labelling of medical grade polycaprolactone (PCL) with ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide (USPIO) nanoparticles as contrast agents to render the melt electrowritten composite scaffolds detectable via MRI.     «

Melt electrowriting (MEW) is an advanced fibre forming technology for 3D printing of complex scaffold architectures, which have convincingly shown their potential in cardiovascular constructs.1,2 Driven by electrohydrodynamic forces, a polymer fibre jet is digitally controlled to form microfibrous scaffolds via a direct writing approach. Clinical translation of such grafts requires establishing monitoring options, such as with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Consequently, this work proposes th...     »