Cradle-to-cradle: designing biomaterials to fit as truly biomimetic cell scaffolds– a review

ABSTRACT Undeniably cell culture plays an important role in biomedical and biological research from understanding cell metabolic pathways to drug screening processes. Traditional cell cultures have been two dimensional (2D) planar (cells growing only in monolayers) and at times frustratedly static. Due to the limitations of 2D cultures, most research has moved towards more complex and dynamic three dimensional (3D) systems that both academic and biomedical research have quickly adopted allowing for wider cell culture applications not feasible using 2D systems. Most 3D cell scaffolds are made using techniques such as particle leaching, or gas foaming methods among others. These approaches present some restrictions, mainly across geometric constraints with deficiencies in the control of pore size, secondary structure and interconnectivity. Other constraints include properly assessing if the materials in question are truly biocompatible and will allow for long term cell studies. Last but not least, mechanical properties of the prepared materials must match cell and tissue specific needs that will lead to correct cellular orientation. In this review we will focus on the key issues that need to be taken into consideration when reporting a new material as biocompatible and biodegradable to ensure reproducibility and rigor when designing novel scaffolds.