Round the twist? Developing textile scaffolds for biomedical applications

Biomaterials and tissue engineering are research areas widely exploited for creating scaffolds to
regenerate or replace tissues, such as cardio and musculoskeletal, but there is little emphasis on the development of 3D structures, which are more clinically relevant.
Methodologies developed in this project will be teamed with textile technologies to create seamless 3D structures that better mimic the tissues they are intended to replace.

The principal aim of this project is the development of long-length electrospun yarns that are woven or knitted to create 3D tubular structures suitable for tissue engineering applications.
This is a cross-disciplinary project bridging biomaterials and textile research that aims to develop long-length yarns that are woven or knitted to create 3D tubular structures suitable for tissue regeneration applications.

The principal aim will be achieved through the:
1. Development of long length multi-filament yarns from electrospun nanofibers.
2. Construction of 3D textile structures using new and existing knitting and weaving
technologies to mimic large tubular tissue structures, such as the aorta, oesophagus and
trachea. This could include, but are not limited to, hollow and nodal multi-layered woven
structures, warp and weft knitted sandwich/spacer structures using seamless whole-garment Computer-Aided Design (CAD) technology.
3. Material and textile properties will be fully evaluated, e.g. fibre diameter, yarn and 3D
structure porosity, mechanical properties.
4. Bone marrow derived stem cells, due to their multipotent differentiation potential, and endothelial cells will be used to evaluate the biocompatibility of the 3D textile structures. In vitro 3D static and dynamic culture will be used to assess cell viability, proliferation and deposition of extracellular matrix throughout these tubular scaffolds, which will demonstrate their suitability for engineering large tissue structures.

Multi-layered 3D tubular textile structures will be created using new and existing knitting and weaving technologies already in-house to replicate complex multi-layered tissue structures such as the aorta and trachea. This will be achieved through the use of multilayered woven and weft knitted sandwich/spacer structures. Creating fully formed and seamless 3D structures on the loom or knitting machine removes the need for joining technologies, which would otherwise impact on the overall performance properties of complex structure by creating inherent regions of weakness. T
he tex (linear density) of the yarns will mimic the architecture of fibrillar collagen providing a favourable matrix for cell attachment, while nanofibres will present nanotopography and large surface area for protein adsorption and cell attachment.

A major goal will be the understanding of the physical and performance properties of these new 3D tubular structures, which will be elucidated using state of the art materials, textile and cell-based characterisation techniques.

Research Outputs:
The student is expected to attend leading conferences in the field of study, as well as aiming to
produce at least one 4* ranked journal article.

This project is aligned to the:
EPSRC Theme: Manufacturing for the Future
and addresses the:
EPSRC Research Area Classification: Materials Engineering; Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering; Sustainable Industrial Systems and Innovative Production Processes.