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The combination of gelatin and hydroxyapatite (HA) has emerged as a promising strategy in dental tissue engineering due to its favorable biocompatibility, mechanical properties, and ability to support cellular activities essential for tissue regeneration, rendering them ideal components for hard tissue applications. Besides, precise control over interconnecting porosity is of paramount importance for tissue engineering materials. Conventional methods for creating porous scaffolds frequently encounter difficulties in regulating pore size distribution. This study demonstrates the fabrication of gelatin-nano HA scaffolds with uniform porosity using a T-type junction microfluidic device in a single-step process. Significant improvements in control over the pore size distribution are achieved by regulating the flow parameters, resulting in effective and time-efficient manufacturing comparable in quality to the innovative 3D bioprinting techniques. The overall porosity of the scaffolds exceeded 60%, with a remarkably narrow size distribution. The incorporation of nano-HAinto 3D porous gelatin scaffolds successfully induced osteogenic differentiation in stem cells at both the protein and gene levels, as evidenced by the significant increase in osteocalcin (OCN), an important marker of osteogenic differentiation. The OCN levels are 26 and 43 times higher for gelatin and gelatin-HA scaffolds, respectively, compared to the control group., (© 2024 The Author(s). Macromolecular Bioscience published by Wiley‐VCH GmbH.)

Neurite outgrowth and elongation of neural cells is the most important subject that is considered in nerve tissue engineering. In this regard, aligned nanofibers have taken much attention in terms of providing guidance for newly outgrown neurites. The main objective of this study was to fabricate aligned polyurethane nanofibers by electrospinning process and decorate them with gold nanoparticles to further investigate the synergistic effects of nanotopography, biological nerve growth factor (NGF) and electrical stimulations on neurite outgrowth and elongation of pheochromocytoma (PC-12) model cells. In this regard, smooth and uniform aligned polyurethane nanofibers with the average diameter of 519 ± 56 nm were fabricated and decorated with the gold nanoparticles with the average diameter of ∼50 nm. PC-12 cells were cultured on the various nanofiber surfaces inside the bio-mimetic bioreactor system and exposed either to NGF alone or combination of NGF and electrical stimulation. It was found that 50 ng/mL NGF concentration is an optimal value for the stimulation of neurite outgrowth. After 4 days of culture under 100 mV, 10 ms electrical stimulation in 1 h/day period it was found that the gold nanoparticle decorated aligned polyurethane nanofibers increased the neurite outgrowth and elongation more with the combinational NGF and electrical stimulation. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part A: 106A: 1604-1613, 2018., (© 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

In article number 1900394 by Mohan Edirisinghe and co-workers, a method for fabricating porogen-free gelatin scaffolds with a narrow pore size distribution using simple T-junction microfluidics is described. It offers an economical approach for the preparation of gelatin scaffolds with homogenous porosity which can be utilized in diverse healthcare engineering applications, especially in pore size dependent scenarios. [Extracted from the article]