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Fabrication and characterization of porous EH scaffolds and EH‐PEG bilayers
Author(s) -
Falco Erin E.,
Coates Emily E.,
Li Erik,
Roth J. Scott,
Fisher John P.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of biomedical materials research part a
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.849
H-Index - 150
eISSN - 1552-4965
pISSN - 1549-3296
DOI - 10.1002/jbm.a.33052
Subject(s) - materials science , polymer , porosity , ethylene glycol , peg ratio , monomer , biomaterial , chemical engineering , tissue engineering , fabrication , flexural strength , scaffold , bilayer , composite material , nanotechnology , membrane , biomedical engineering , medicine , alternative medicine , finance , pathology , biology , engineering , economics , genetics
Abstract Biomaterials made from synthetic polymers are becoming more pervasive in the medical field. Synthetic polymers are particularly advantageous as their chemical and mechanical properties can be easily tailored to a specific application. This work characterizes polymer scaffolds derived from the cyclic acetal monomer 5‐ethyl‐5‐(hydroxymethyl)‐β,β‐dimethyl‐1,3‐dioxane‐2‐ethanol diacrylate (EHD). Both porous scaffolds and bilayer scaffolds based upon the EHD monomer were fabricated, and the resulting scaffolds' degradation and mechanical properties were studied. The results showed that by modifying the architecture of an EH scaffold, either by adding a porous network or a poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) coating, the degradation and Young's modulus of the biomaterial can be significant altered. However, results also indicated that these architectural modifications can be accomplished without a significant loss in the flexural strength of the scaffold. Therefore, we suggest that porous EH scaffolds, and particularly porous EH‐PEG bilayers, may be especially useful in dynamic tissue environments due to their advantageous architectural and mechanical properties. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part A:, 2011.