| Each year, surgeons repair more than 300,000 injured tendon and ligament tissues in the United States alone.1 Unfortunately, current treatments are limited, resulting in a clinical need for regenerated tendon and ligament tissues. Electrospun nanofibers are favorable for tissue engineering applications due to their resemblance in fiber diameter and morphology to extracellular matrix. The goal of the work presented here is to utilize this biomimetic feature of nanofibers in the generation of scaffolds that also mimic the macrostructure of natural tissue. It is hypothesized that scaffolds that recapitulate natural tissue structure over a range of dimensions will enhance natural tissue regeneration with progenitor cells. This work explores new and innovative scaffold fabrication techniques and characterizes the potential use of these scaffolds which recapitulate the complex structure of natural tendon and ligament structures. |
