Injectable scaffolds (alginate capsules) for regenerative medicine

• Main Author: Toh, Shi Min.
• Other Authors: Choong Swee Neo Cleo
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Materials
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/51467
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

To be able to manipulate the properties of a scaffold is one of the requirements of an ideal scaffold, both for the purpose of drug delivery and tissue engineering. It has been well documented that cells are very responsive towards mechanical properties of a scaffold. Alginate is a mild gelling, highly natural and biocompatible material, and one of the advantages of alginate is that its properties can be easily manipulated by many factors such as types of crosslinkers. While other factors such as composition, different type and concentration of crosslinker has been studied extensively, the effect of mixing different crosslinker has yet received much attention. Hence, this project explores the different effects of crosslinkers on the properties of the injectable alginate capsules, focusing on calcium and barium and the combination of the two crosslinkers. With the addition of barium chloride crosslinkers with concentration ranging from 1-10mM into 50mM and 100mM calcium chloride crosslinkers, this project attempts to obtain a hybrid crosslinker concentration to achieve a compromise between the mechanical strength and the elasticity of the fabricated injectable sized microcapsules. The mechanical strength of the capsules is investigated through a newly developed injectability test method. In addition, thermal properties and morphology of the alginate capsules is also becoming the subject of the investigation for this project.