Design of a nano-scaffold for tissue engineering

The goal of this study is to design a scaffold, utilizing topographical features on the nanometer scale, to determine the relationship between those features and cellular orientation during in vitro cell culture. Ultimately the goal of this study is to control the structure of engineered tissue which can be accomplished by directing cellular orientation during growth. The control of tissue structure is important because tissue structure determines tissue function. The topographical nano-scale features in this design are created by using self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of the plasma protein fibrinogen. The scaffold is made out of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and is fabricated utilizing a multi-step manufacturing process. In the future, the scaffold will provide a means to culture cells and characterize cellular orientation in relation to the patterned SAMs.