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Chapter 5
Conclusion
The research carried out in this thesis, is part of BioScent European project, which has as objective to development polymeric scaffolds to use as patches able to induce regeneration of damaged parts of the cardiovascular system.
The main goal of this project was the development and characterization of highly interconnected porous scaffolds for cardiac tissue regeneration. Highly interconnected pores promote cell migration and exchange of nutrients.
The study is carried out using two technique, particularly, we studied:
FOAM SCAFFOLDS
ELECTROSPINNING SCAFFOLDS
The target of the thesis is achieved because we produced scaffolds with high interconnected pores.
We carried out a porous PGS with amount 98% grade of porosity (cross section porosity and surface porosity) using alternative salt leaching methods that consent to
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obtain only surface porosity. The optimization of this methods consists of suitable parameters such as concentrations, polymers, temperature etc. to obtain the best results. This is a very important data to use PGS, in the future, like a cardiac scaffolds. The foams showed a good physics and chemical properties and a very high grade of porosity, but the scaffolds were too delicate and mechanically instable to use as a patch. Is necessary to perform ulterior studies to improve the mechanical characteristic of the foam to make similar as a cardiac tissue.
The ESP scaffolds showed a good physics and chemistry characteristic and also they are a good scaffold for the cells attachment, but is impossible to guide the cells along the built geometry. Is possible to use ESP scaffolds to create a porous scaffolds usable just for the cell attachment and differentiation.
Finally is possible to conclude that the results are encouraging, but it is really necessary to perform new studies to achieve the goal of the project.
