ABSTRACT
I. Introduction .................................................................................................................... 155
II. PLGA as a Tissue Engineering Material ....................................................................... 156
III. The Gas Foaming Process .............................................................................................. 157
IV. Protein Delivery from Gas-Foamed PLGA Scaffolds ................................................... 158
A. Angiogenesis .......................................................................................................... 158
B. Bone Regeneration ................................................................................................. 159
V. Gene Delivery from Gas-Foamed PLGA Scaffolds ...................................................... 162
VI. Conclusions and Future Directions ................................................................................ 164
References ................................................................................................................................... 165
Tissue engineering aims to regenerate or replace the structural and functional characteristics of lost
or damaged tissues. Strategies to accomplish this goal generally include one or a combination of the
following components depending on the desired outcome: biocompatible scaffolds, bio-inductive
factors and transplanted cells. For either the delivery of growth factors or cells in tissue engineering,
it is often desirable to confine them within a space that can be controllably localized, as opposed to
systemic administration. In this respect, the use of scaffolds as delivery vehicles is critical. Thus, a
major emphasis in biomaterials research for tissue engineering applications is the fabrication of
three-dimensional scaffolds that mimic aspects of the nature extracellular matrix in an attempt to
replace or restore the tissue of interest.
