Continuous DLP Rendering of Tissue Engineering Scaffolds.doc

Continuous DLP Rendering of Tissue Engineering Scaffolds
Jonathan E. Wallace1, Ali Siblani2, Martha Wang3, Kyobum Kim4, John P. Fisher3, Antonios G. Mikos5, David Dean6
1Deparment of Biomedical Engineering, 6Department of Neurological Surgery, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA; 2envisionTEC Inc., Ferndale, MI, USA; 3Fischell Department of Bioengineering, 4Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA; 5Department of Bioengineering, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA.
Introduction
It would likely be useful to directly render resorbable scaffolds with internal porous spaces with geometry designed to promote desired tissue ingrowth. The mon pore sizes are between 200 and 1600 Stereolithography (SLA) is one of the more promising technologies for directly rendering (., 3D printing or "additive manufacturing"2) resorptive scaffolds with controlled porous However, features at the low end of this range may pose a challenge for mercially available SLA devices. In addition to accuracy issues, tissue engineering polymers are of much lower molecular weight, often 2 orders of magnitude, than the industry standard resins. Low molecular weight, high viscosity, and difficult post-curing handling may add to the difficulty of directly rendering scaffolds.
We have been investigating the use o