Center for Biomedical Engineering, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
Adv Mater. 2010 Jun 18;22(23):2538-41. doi: 10.1002/adma.200903893.
A general method for construction of three dimensional structures by directed assembly of microscale polymeric sub-units is presented. Shape-controlled microgels are directed to assemble into different shapes by limiting their movement onto a molded substrate. The capillary forces, resulting from the presence of a liquid polymer, assemble the microgels in close contact with the rest of the units and with the free surface, the latter imposing the final geometry of the resulting construct. The result is a freestanding structure composed of one or multiple layers of sub-units assembled in a tightly packed conformation. The applicability of the technique for the construction of scaffolds with cell-laden sub-units is demonstrated. In addition, scaffolds formed by the sequential aggregation of sub-units are produced.
提出了一种通过微尺度聚合亚单位定向组装构建三维结构的通用方法。通过限制形状可控的微凝胶在模具基底上的运动，将其定向组装成不同的形状。由于液体聚合物的存在而产生的毛细力将微凝胶紧密地组装在一起，并与其他单元以及自由表面接触，后者决定了最终构建体的几何形状。结果是一个由一个或多个亚单位层组成的自由站立结构，这些亚单位以紧密堆积的构象组装在一起。该技术用于构建含有细胞亚单位的支架的适用性得到了证明。此外，还制备了通过亚单位顺序聚集形成的支架。
