Continuous Microfiber Wire Mandrel‐Less Biofabrication for Soft Tissue Engineering Applications
Suture materials are the most common bioimplants in surgical and clinical practice, playing a crucial role in wound healing and tendon and ligament repair. Despite the assortment available on the market, sutures are still affected by significant disadvantages, including failure in mimicking the mechanical properties of the tissue, excessive fibrosis, and inflammation. This study introduces a mandrel-less electrodeposition apparatus to fabricate continuous microfiber wires of indefinite length. The mandrel-less biofabrication produces wires, potentially used as medical fibers, with different microfiber bundles, that imitate the hierarchical organization of native tissues, and tailored mechan…
A biostable, anti-fouling zwitterionic polyurethane-urea based on PDMS for use in blood-contacting medical devices.
Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is commonly used in medical devices because it is non-toxic and stable against oxidative stress. Relatively high blood platelet adhesion and the need for chemical crosslinking through curing, however, limit its utility. In this research, a biostable PDMS-based polyurethane-urea bearing zwitterion sulfobetaine (PDMS-SB-UU) was synthesized for potential use in the fabrication or coating of blood-contacting devices, such as a conduits, artificial lungs, and microfluidic devices. The chemical structure and physical properties of synthesized PDMS-SB-UU were confirmed by (1)H-nuclear magnetic resonance ((1)H-NMR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and uniaxial stress-strain cur…