3D engineered wound scaffolds for spatiotemporally controlled release kinetics

This paper presents a new multi-function based modeling of 3D heterogeneous porous wound scaffolds to improve wound healing process of complex volumetric wounds. Imaging study is performed to extract 3D wound geometry and recognize wound features. Linear healing fashion of the wound margin towards the wound center is mimicked. Blending process is thus applied to the extracted geometry to partition the scaffold into a number of uniformly gradient healing regions. Computer models of 3D engineered porous wound scaffolds are then developed for solid freeform modeling and fabrication. Spatial variation over biomaterial and loaded bio-molecule concentration is developed based on wound healing requirements. Release of bio-molecules over the uniform healing regions is controlled by varying their amount and entrapping biomaterial concentration. Thus, localized controlled release is proposed to promote wound healing. A multi-syringe single nozzle deposition system is used to fabricate sample scaffolds. Proposed methodology is implemented and illustrative examples are presented in this paper.