These new methods for tissue engineering address the challenges of building scaffolds that exhibit the properties of real human tissue. Georgia Tech’s innovations leverage a method using fabricated polycaprolactone (PCL) yarns by wet electrospinning. The PCL yarns can be used for constructing a textile-based sandwich scaffold that—unlike existing scaffold fabrication methods—mimics the strain-stiffening behavior observed in human tissues. Additionally, carbon nanotubes (CNT) can be incorporated into the yarns, providing conductive properties to the polymer composite.

To construct the textile-based sandwich scaffold, endothelial cells are seeded on the PCL yarns and can align and elongate along the yarn direction. Then, the yarns are crocheted into a textile fabric, which becomes the middle layer between two electrospun mats. Cells are also seeded on the outer layers, which proliferate and penetrate the scaffold. The textile-based sandwich scaffold notably exhibits the potential to mimic the mechanical, physical, and biological properties of human skin and other tissues.

Using a modified process, a CNT-based polymer composite can be generated by wet electrospinning PCL yarns into a bath containing CNT. The process eliminates the modifications previously needed to incorporate conductive CNTs into polymers—more readily leveraging their advantages in regulating electroactive cells for tissue engineering applications. The resulting composite yarns exhibit good biocompatibility and may be used in a range of construction techniques for vascular scaffolds. Georgia Tech’s advances provide a novel method for applying polymers, CNTs, and other functional materials into tissue engineering applications.