| Abstract Scope |
Electrospinning is now widely used in tissue engineering due to the versatility of the technology itself and also the nanofibrous products that it can produce. Nanofibers and nanofibrous structures are desirable as tissue engineering scaffolds for regenerating human body tissues and as delivery vehicles for controlled release of therapeutic agents. Different types of fibers (surface porous, core-shell structured, nanocomposite, etc.) and fibrous structures (non-woven, aligned, multilayered, etc.) can be made via electrospinning. Particular electrospinning techniques, such as emulsion electrospinning which can encapsulate growth factors for their local delivery, have been extensively used in tissue engineering. Cell-encapsulated fibers (“cell fibers”) may also be electrospun. With concurrent electrospinning, multicomponent and/or multifunctional scaffolds can be produced for different purposes. Over past two decades, we have conducted extensive investigations into electrospun nanofibrous structures for medical applications. This talk will present our research on electrospinning and electrospun structures and discuss a few critical issues. |