Enhanced Soft Tissue Attachment and Fixation Using a Mechanically-Stimulated Cytoselective Tissue-Specific ECM Coating

Abstract : The purpose of this study is to test whether mechanical stimulation of a co-cultured biomaterial scaffold can improve/expedite healing of a tendon-to-bone interface for soft tissue repair. There are several precursor milestones that need to be achieved before the purpose can be tested. Namely, these milestones include: determining an appropriate scaffold for the tendon to bone interface, characterizing the co-culture behavior on the selected scaffold, developing a mechanical bioreactor to stimulate co-cultured scaffolds, and characterize the effect of mechanical stimulation on the co-cultured scaffolds. Currently, techniques have been established to condition the scaffolds by adsorbing attachments proteins found in fetal bovine serum. Efficient protocols for extracellular matrix digestion and analysis have been developed to save scaffold materials and correlate data. Finally, a customizable bioreactor was designed to selectively mechanically stimulate tendon-to-bone tissue engineering co-cultured scaffolds.