The focus of this thesis was to develop new highly porous (>90% porosity) Bioglass®-based glass-ceramic scaffolds (fabricated by the foam replica method) in order to enhance the scaffold cellular response and biological performance and to improve the scaffold suitability for future clinical applications by adding new functions.
In the first part of the project, techniques were developed to introduce or engineer nanoscale topography on the surfaces of 3D scaffolds, these included: i) carbon nanotube (CNT) coating (by electrophoretic deposition), ii) polymer demixing and iii) water treatment.
In the second part of the project, aiming at further improving the functionality of scaffolds, a system with drug delivery capability was developed. To this aim, multi-functional poly(3-hydroxybutryate) microsphere (PMS) coated Bioglass®-based composite scaffolds were fabricated and characterised. Tetracycline-encapsulated PMSs (< 2 μm in diameter) were made using a solid-in-oil-in-water emulsion solvent extraction/evaporation technique. The scaffolds were coated with PMSs by slurry-dipping, producing a uniform PMS coating throughout the 3D structure. By studying tetracycline release kinetics, it was found that the drug release from the coated scaffolds was slow and controlled.