Image-based structure-to-function correlation of tissue engineering scaffolds

Abstract

Tissue engineering is an interdisciplinary effort aimed at the repair and regeneration of biological tissues through the application and control of cells, porous scaffolds and growth factors. While there is a general intuitive consensus on the influence of scaffold architecture on the regeneration of tissues, the specific magnitude of these architectural indices are loosely defined. This paper investigates the application of image-based metrology and traditional wet-lab studies to understand cellular responses and phenotype expression to scaffold microarchitecture. Unraveling the symbiotic structure-to-function relationship of scaffolds might have profound implications leading to the deployment of benchside tissue analogs to the clinical bedside.