Hydrogel Composite Materials for Tissue Engineering Scaffolds

Hydrogels are appealing for biomaterials applications due to their compositional similarity with highly hydrated natural biological tissues. However, for structurally demanding tissue engineering applications, hydrogel use is limited by poor mechanical properties. Here, composite materials approaches are considered for improving hydrogel properties while attempting to more closely mimic natural biological tissue structures. A variety of composite material microstructures is explored, based on multiple hydrogel constituents, particle reinforcement, electrospun nanometer to micrometer diameter polymer fibers with single and multiple fiber networks, and combinations of these approaches to form fully three-dimensional fiber-reinforced hydrogels. Natural and synthetic polymers are examined for formation of a range of scaffolds and across a range of engineered tissue applications. Following a discussion of the design and fabrication of composite scaffolds, interactions between living biological cells and composite scaffolds are considered across the full life cycle of tissue engineering from scaffold fabrication to in vivo use. We conclude with a summary of progress in this area to date and make recommendations for continuing research and for advanced hydrogel scaffold development.