Electrospun medical materials offer numerous biological benefits, making them highly valuable for various biomedical applications. Some of the key biological benefits of electrospun medical materials include:
Biomimetic Architecture: Electrospun nano- and microfibers closely mimic the fibrous structure of the natural extracellular matrix (ECM) found in human tissues. This biomimetic architecture promotes cell adhesion, proliferation, and differentiation, facilitating tissue regeneration and repair processes.
Enhanced Cell & Tissue Response: The high surface area and porosity of electrospun materials allow for increased cell-material interactions, particularly cell adhesion, proliferation, and differentiation. Cells can attach, spread, and migrate more effectively on the scaffold, leading to improved cell viability and functional tissue formation. This is especially important for medical devices whose purpose is to restore damaged or diseased tissue.
Bioresorbable: Electrospun materials can be designed to be biodegradable, meaning they can be safely broken down and resorbed by the body over time. This property is crucial in the design of tissue scaffolds, because as the electrospun material gradually degrades it allows newly formed tissue to replace the implant and its function.
Anti-microbial: Bioresorbable electrospun materials can also be designed to incorporate antimicrobial agents, so that as the implant is safely resorbed, it also releases antimicrobial agents preventing acute or chronic infection. In this strategy, the localized, targeted use of antimicrobial agents, can greatly reduce the need for systemic administration of antibiotics, thereby counteracting side effects and antibiotic resistance.
Tissue Integration: Electrospun materials integrate seamlessly with the surrounding tissues, reducing the extent of chronic inflammation and adverse foreign body reactions. This integration fosters better tissue regeneration and long-term stability of the electrospun implant without deleterious scar tissue formation.
Controlled Drug Delivery: Electrospun fibers can be engineered to encapsulate drugs or growth factors, offering controlled and sustained release directly at the injury site. This feature enables targeted drug delivery, which is beneficial for localized treatments – particularly by improving their potency and reducing side effects.
Angiogenesis: Due to their high porosity and tunable pore size, electrospun materials promote angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels. Proper angiogenesis is essential for providing oxygen and nutrients to developing tissues, accelerating the healing process.
Modulation of Cell Behavior: Electrospun materials can be functionalized by incorporating bioactive molecules, such as peptides or growth factors. These functionalized materials can modulate cell behavior, guiding cellular activities like stem cell differentiation and tissue-specific functions.
Enabling Advanced Therapies: Electrospun materials provide an excellent platform for advanced stem cell-based therapies and tissue engineering. They can act as carriers and scaffolds for stem cells and provide the necessary cues for guiding stem cell differentiation into specific cell and tissue types. Eventually, electrospun scaffolds incorporating growth factors and stem cells may be able to replace damaged or diseased organs.
Mechanical Properties: Electrospun scaffolds can be engineered to possess mechanical
properties that match those of the target tissue. For example, bone scaffolds can be designed to have high mechanical strength, while cardiac scaffolds can have elasticity similar to heart tissue. Similar to specialized human tissues, electrospun materials can be engineered to be anisotropic – e.g. stiff in one direction and elastic in the other – offering a large design space for new medical implant design and development.
Non-immunogenic: VIVOLTA’s electrospun medical materials are non-immunogenic, meaning they do not trigger an immune response. This is due to their composition based on biocompatible synthetic and natural polymers that have a proven clinical track record of safety. This characteristic is crucial for implantable materials, as it reduces the likelihood of rejection by the body’s immune system.
These biological benefits highlight the tremendous potential of electrospun medical materials in regenerative medicine, tissue engineering, drug delivery, and various other biomedical applications.