Multifunctional nanostructured PLA materials for packaging and tissue engineering

Abstract

This review reports the promising prospects of poly(lactic acid) (PLA) based nanostructured materials considering two of their main potential uses, packaging and tissue engineering. The review initially discusses the significant progresses in the development of PLA bionanocomposites for packaging applications. The review then continues with a comprehensive analysis of the recent advances in tissue engineering applications focusing in the synthesis of PLA nanoparticles, the processing of PLA based multifunctional nanocomposites and PLA surface modification techniques. In summary, the review presents the current state of nanostructured PLA materials and establishes the exciting present and future prospects of these materials at the interface of chemistry, biology and material science.The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the CSIC (2010MA0003). NB thanks the CSIC for a JAE-Pre grant. The Author Elena Fortunati is the recipient of the fellowship “L’Oreal Italia per le Donne e la Scienza 2012” for the project >Progettazione, sviluppo e caratterizzazione di biomateriali nanostrutturati capaci di modulare la risposta e il differenziamento delle cellule staminali>.Peer Reviewe