Exploring Process Technologies to Fabricate Fibrous Scaffolds and Bio-Textiles for Biomedical Applications.

In order to mimic natural tissues, a successful strategy is to design bio-inspired materials including controlled morphological and biochemical cues as nature guidelines suggested. In this context, old and new process technologies, case by case, have to be adapted to develop innovative templates with the finest control of structural/functional properties able to correctly interact with biological tissues. Since organic and inorganic materials from synthetic or natural source do not singularly satisfy all the requirements, the discovery of new process solutions able to combine two or more materials into multicomponent systems (i.e., blends, composites, hybrids) may represent an interesting alternative for scaffold design. In order to simplify process conditions, without limiting the complexity of final device, current trends mainly address to bottom up approaches based on fibres used as micro-tassels, variously combined as a function of the desired properties - biochemical, mechanical or biological ones, to form the final device. Here, two different approaches based on the use of polymeric fibres have been proposed. Continuous microfibres processed by capillary extrusion can be integrated as reinforcement agent of porous biodegradable matrices to develop composite scaffolds with multiscale degradation properties suitable for hard tissue regeneration. Alternatively, micro- or submicro- fibres made of synthetic and/or natural polymers can be randomly assembled or patterned to form uniaxially oriented or textured platforms, thanks to the high customization of electrofluidodynamic techniques (i.e., electrospinning). Both approaches offer a large variety of micro and nano-structured platforms - with micro/nanoscale architecture and peculiar chemical composition - suitable as scaffolds or biotextiles for tissue regeneration or other biomedical uses.