Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons^™

Assessment Of Electrospinning As An In-House Fabrication Technique For Blood Vessel Mimic Cellular Scaffolding, Colby M. James

Master's Theses

Intravascular devices, such as stents, must be rigorously tested before they can be approved by the FDA. This includes bench top in vitro testing to determine biocompatibility, and animal model testing to ensure safety and efficacy. As an intermediate step, a blood vessel mimic (BVM) testing method has been developed that mimics the three dimensional structure of blood vessels using a perfusion bioreactor system, human derived endothelial cells, and a biocompatible polymer scaffold used to support growth of the blood vessel cells. The focus of this thesis was to find an in-house fabrication method capable of making cellular scaffolding for …