Synthesis and manufacture of photocrosslinkable poly(caprolactone)-based three-dimensional scaffolds for tissue engineering applications

It is known that the body can efficiently repair hard tissue (bone) micro fractures by suturing the defect through the deposition of minerals resulting in an area that is stronger post-injury. Larger defects, however, generally cause more trouble since the body is incapable of repairing them. Bone defects can occur as a result of congenital abnormalities, trauma, or disease. Traditional methods for addressing these defects have involved the use of acellular cadaverous bone or autologous bone. Both contain innate prob- lems associated with them; the former method can result in disease transmission, as well as very low integration with the host due to the lack of viable cells while the latter is associated with two surgical sites and morbidity at the donor site. Alternative methods have been developed, but no method has yet provided a satisfactory solution. As a result, resear- chers and the medical community are turning toward the promising fields of biomaterial development and tissue engineering to develop new materials and me- thods of bone regeneration. In this work, a design of experiments (DOE) approach was performed to ren- der commercially available biodegradable polymers (Poly(caprolactone)-diol/triol) photocrosslinkable and resultantly manufacturable using stereolithography (SL), a rapid prototyping technology. To perform the investigations, a commercial SL system (Viper HA, 3D Systems, Valencia, CA) equipped with a solid state laser system (355 nm wavelength) was used to manu-facture synthesized poly(caprolactone) trifuma- rate (PCLtF) 3D porous constructs. Results of the work conducted produced constructs which provided pro- mising chemical and biological results for the in- tended application.