Abstract
Tissue engineering strategies have shown promise for the repair of damaged organs, including bone. One of the major challenges associated with tissue engineering is how to scale up such processes for high throughput manufacturing of biomaterial scaffolds used to support stem cell culture. Generation of certain types of 3D biomaterial scaffolds, including chitosan-calcium phosphate blends, involves a slow fabrication process followed by a lengthy required freeze drying step. This work investigates the use of automated microwave vacuum drying technology as an alternative to traditional freeze drying as a method of fabricating chitosan-calcium phosphate scaffolds for supporting embryonic stem cell cultures. Scaffolds produced using both drying techniques possess similar properties when characterized using scanning electron microscopy and this paper is the first to report that both types of these scaffolds support undifferentiated embryonic stem cell culture as well as promote stem cell differentiation into osteogenic lineages when treated with the appropriate factors. Compared to existing scaffold manufacturing processes using freeze drying, the use of microwave vacuum drying will lead to faster production times while reducing the costs, enabling high-throughput manufacturing of biomaterial scaffolds for stem cell applications.