Preliminary study of viscoelastic bulk properties for cell-substrate interaction in scaffold guided tissue engineering

In the field of tissue engineering the development of biomaterial surfaces that allow cell attachment for viability and growth is highly challenging. These materials are used in the development of scaffolds to provide a supporting framework and also to provide a controlled spatial distribution of cells which could guide tissue formation. Our group focuses in designing scaffolds that can engineer tissue growth by tuning the geometry, mechanical properties or chemical properties of the material. For effective and complete designing quantitative analysis of interactions of the cell and scaffold is highly significant. This would be of great value for controlling cell behavior and the processes involved in incorporating the cells into the scaffolds for directing cellular responses and tissue formation. This paper discusses the material considerations and design parameters required for conducting this study.