The number of patients who need heart valve replacement is likely to triple
over the next five decades due to the continuously increasing aging of the
population in developed countries. Several approaches have raised such as
synthetic and non-biodegradable prostheses. Nonetheless, their limited lifetime and the fact that they do not support tissue remodelling and regeneration have lead the research field towards regenerative medicine.
In that direction, a well established procedure consists on cell-laden hydrogel casting in a polymer scaffold. Melt Electrowriting is a 3D printing
novel technique which allows to build biodegradable polymer tubular constructs whose microfibres might mimic the microarchitecture of collagen
filaments present in the native aortic valve matrix. In order to make this
possible, though, a code needs to be specifically designed for this application and printing technique.
In this project, we propose Matlab as a code generator. Several patterns
and geometries must be printed in order to mimic the inner architecture of
the native aortic valve while preserving its mechanical integrity as well as
its macroscopic shape and features. Also, it must respond to the technical
requirements of the MEW and translate the desired accuracy to the tubular
scaffold. Besides, Mach3 is used as a code reader to translate the commands
into movement of the motors in the machine, and therefore validate the
performance and printability of the code.
The results show the capability and efficiency of Matlab in generating
a program which contains the instructions to be followed by MEW machine. The code introduces a maximum error of 4.55% when comparing the
code-adjusted parameters with the initially desired values. Furthermore, its
customizable character enables to print scaffolds with different specifications
in diameter, pore size and leaflet length, among others.
The achievement of printing such a complex microarchitecture means a
step forward in the way to produce an aortic valve replacement which mimics native mechanical properties while allowing tissue regeneration. Furthermore, this customizable coding approach will be beneficial not only to Heart
Valve Tissue Engineering (HVTE) purposes, but also to other applications
where Tubular MEW might be needed.Outgoin
