High porosity electrospun scaffolds for small diameter vascular graft applications

Voorneveld, Jason Dirk

High porosity electrospun scaffolds for small diameter vascular graft applications

Master Thesis

2015

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Division of Biomedical Engineering

Faculty

Faculty of Health Sciences

Abstract

Porosity, pore size and pore interconnectivity have been shown to be critical factors for cellular infiltration into vascular grafts. While electrospinning has been shown to produce many promising characteristics for the fabrication of vascular graft scaffolds, it has yet to create sufficient porosity for transmural endothelial in-growth. This study was aimed at using dual electrospinning with sacrificial fibre extraction to produce scaffolds with controllable porosity characteristics while maintaining sufficient structural strength to resist deformation during implantation. Scaffolds were subsequently covalently grafted with heparin, a known anti-coagulant with growth-factor binding properties.

Keywords

Biomedical Engineering

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