Vinyl Esters: Low Cytotoxicity Monomers for the Fabrication of Biocompatible 3D Scaffolds by Lithography Based Additive Manufacturing

Lithography based additive manufacturing technologies (AMT) like stereolithography or digital light processing have become appealing methods for the fabrication of 3D cellular scaffolds for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine To circumvent the use of (meth)acrylate-based photopolymers, that suffer from skin irritation and sometimes cytotoxicity.. new monomers based on vinyl esters were prepared In vitro cytotoxicity studies with osteoblast-like cells proofed that monomers based oil vinyl esters are significantly less cytotoxic than (meth)acrylates Photoreactivity was followed by photo-differential scanning calorimetry and the mechanical properties of the photocured materials were screened by nanoindentation. Conversion rates and indentation moduli between those of acrylate and methacrylate references could be observed Furthermore, osteoblast-like cells were successfully seeded onto polymer specimens Finally, we were able to print a 3D test structure out of a vinyl ester-based formulation by mu-SLA with a layer thickness of 50 mu m. For in vivo testing of vinyl esters these 3D scaffolds were implanted into surgical defects of the distal femoral bone of adult New Zealand white rabbits The obtained histological results approved the excellent biocompatibility of vinyl esters. (C) 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 47: 6941-6954, 2009