(112g) Cylindrical Micro-Porous Membranes for Directed Cellular Growth

     Biocompatible scaffolds have been of great interest to biological and medical fields in cell culturing and cell delivery. Especially, polymeric membranes used for tissue scaffolding offer superior physical properties for directed cellular growth. Our work is concerned with the studies of cell attachment and propagation in collagen coated cylindrical polymeric membranes. The effect of a highly periodic pore structure and the size of the pores is of special interest to this study.

     We have convectively assembled 2.4 and 9.6 µm sized sulfate-polystyrene (PS) particles in 50 µm inner-diameter and 280 µm square inner-wall polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) capillaries. Cylindrical colloidal crystals with closed-packed hexagonal packing are formed. Fabrication of a porous membrane from this template is achieved by infiltrating a UV curable prepolymer into the interstitial spaces of the colloidal crystal. The prepolymer is subsequently cured under long-wave UV light. The cured particle-polymer assembly is treated with a sequence of organic solvents to remove both the PMMA capillary and the PS particles forming cylindrical porous membranes. The porous polymeric membrane is exposed to a solution of hydrated collagen leading to the adsorption of collagen on the polymer surface.

     We have investigated the structures of the coated polymeric membranes using scanning electron microscopy. Additionally, the cell attachment and propagation behavior are studied, and our findings with respect to the effect of pore size and order will be presented.