Surface Functionalised Collagen Scaffolds for Peripheral Nerve Repair

Peripheral nerves can recover naturally following injuries; however, surgical intervention is often necessary to aid nerve regeneration, particularly over longer nerve gaps. One surgical option that has shown clinical success is the placement of a nerve guide between damaged nerve ends to support and guide regrowing axons, and there is plenty of scope for designing both the structure and chemistry of a guide to optimise nerve regeneration.
Complete functional recovery following any nerve injury is very unlikely, even with surgical intervention, and the formation of scar tissue is a major contributor to this. Reducing the infiltration, attachment, and proliferation of fibroblasts in a nerve tube should result in a reduction in scar tissue formation, though it is important that the activities of other cells involved in nerve regeneration are not inhibited. This project therefore aims to investigate methods to control the cell-selectivity of three-dimensional collagen scaffolds for use as nerve guides, primarily through surface functionalisation with the laminin derived IKVAV peptide. Physical methods to reduce fibroblast infiltration will also be studied, such as the production of a collagen sheath to surround a nerve guide.