Preparation and characterization of 3-D PLGA scaffold for tissue engineering / Nur Khairunnisa Abdul Manaf

Tissue engineering has emerged as a prormsing approach in the treatment of malfunctioning or lost organs. In this approach, a temporary scaffold is needed to serve as an adhesive substrate for the implanted cell and a physical support to guide the formation of new organs. The objective is to prepare and characterize variety PLGA scaffolds with different morphology, mechanical properties and porosity using different ratio of lactic to glycolic acid in the PLGA and different size of salt (NaCl) which range from ≥ 200µm, 100µm to < 200µm and < 100µm . PLGA is used in this study due to its non-toxic, biodegradable and biocompatibility effect in the human body. The method use in this study is solvent casting / particulate leaching method which involve the casting of a mixture of polymer solution and porogen in a mold, drying the mixture, followed by a leaching out of porogen with water to generate the pores. The results of the analyses showed that the size of the salt and ratio of lactic to glycolic acid content in the PLGA do give effect to the mechanical properties and porosity of the PLGA scaffold.