Print Email Facebook Twitter Development of a Two-Phase Scaffold-Nanoparticle System for the Sustained Delivery of Growth Factors in Bone Tissue Engineering Applications Title Development of a Two-Phase Scaffold-Nanoparticle System for the Sustained Delivery of Growth Factors in Bone Tissue Engineering Applications Author De Witte, Tinke (TU Delft Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering) Contributor Fratila-Apachitei, E.L. (mentor) Peppas, Nicholas (mentor) Zadpoor, A.A. (mentor) Hagedoorn, P.L. (graduation committee) Dodou, D. (graduation committee) Degree granting institution Delft University of Technology Date 2018-06-22 Abstract In recent years, bone tissue engineering has emerged as a promising strategy to overcome the limitations of current ‘gold standard’ treatment options for bone disorders such as bone autografts and allografts. Bone tissue engineering strategies rely on the development of a scaffold that mimics the extracellular matrix, thereby providing an architecture that guides the natural bone regeneration process. Recently, scaffold systems have been developed to incorporate important extracellular signaling molecules which promote fracture healing and bone formation pathways. Among these signaling molecules, naturally occurring growth factors are of particular interest. This interest is due to their ability to enhance cell recruitment and ingress into the scaffold and promote osteogenic differentiation and angiogenesis, each of which is crucial to successful bone regeneration. However, a key challenge in growth factor delivery is that the molecule must reach the site of injury without losing bioactivity and remain in the location for an extended time in order to effectively aid in the formation of new bone. Among various strategies explored in the literature, incorporation of growth factors into particles can offer both protection of bioactivity and a sustained release profile. However, the particles can easily diffuse through the scaffold macropores and traverse to other areas of the body. In this work, a novel two-phase system for the sustained delivery of BMP-2 growth factors has been developed. The system consists of growth factors encapsulated in degradable nanoparticles (nanocarriers) which are immobilized in a porous scaffold. The nanoparticles incorporate a hydrolytically degradable crosslinker that can be easily tuned to achieve desired sustained release profiles. By chemically conjugating the nanocarriers to the scaffold backbone, this two-phase system is able to protect the growth factor from rapid degradation, improve the release kinetics, and achieve longer-term retention within the scaffold. Ultimately, the tunability of this novel growth factor delivery platform can be adapted to a wide variety of applications. Ultimately, this work shows that two-phase systems consisting of growth factor-loaded nanoparticles covalently bound to scaffolds have great promise, both by providing sustained release over a therapeutically relevant timeframe and the potential to sequentially deliver multiple growth factors. Subject bone regenerationgrowth factor deliverydegradable nanoparticlessustained deliverychitosan scaffold To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:794eb114-4df6-4acb-b92b-e7a00ce41c7c Embargo date 2021-06-22 Part of collection Student theses Document type master thesis Rights © 2018 Tinke De Witte Files PDF Thesis_De_Witte_2018.pdf 14.21 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:794eb114-4df6-4acb-b92b-e7a00ce41c7c/datastream/OBJ/view