Biomimetic nerve scaffolds with aligned intraluminal microchannels: a "sweet" approach to tissue engineering

In this paper, we outline a method for the fabrication of biomimetic hollow fiber and hollow fiber bundles with high aspect ratios. The manufacturing process utilizes a melt spinning technique with caramelized sucrose as a core template. Encapsulation of the sucrose with a thin layer of degradable polymer and selective dissolution of the sucrose core produced tubes and tube aggregates with geometries similar to biologic analogs. The manufacturing process requires no specialized equipment and minimal quantities of organic solvent/polymer. These scaffolds were shown to induce nerve and glial cell alignment in vitro and may be further customized to integrate with other tissue or cell culture systems.