Melt electrospinning writing of defined scaffolds using polylactide-poly(ethylene glycol) blends with 45S5 bioactive glass particles

Advances in Tissue Engineering (TE) demand strategies to apply new biomaterials and processing technologies. In this context, especially computer aided additive manufacturing (AM) has turned out as a promising tool to tailor scaffold architectures with high precision. However, there is currently a lack of appropriate AM methods, since the majority face serious drawbacks regarding printing accuracy and speed, as well as limitations regarding the range of applicable biomaterials. Here, we present the simple AM processing of poly(lactide-block-ethylene glycol-block-lactide) (PLA-PEG-PLA) triblock copolymers via melt electrospinning writing (MEW). Furthermore, we demonstrate the accurate deposition of fibers (fØ = 31 ± 2 µm) made of copolymer blends with low-molecular PLA incorporating solid 45S5 bioactive glass (BG) particles. Thus, we introduce MEW for the printing of highly porous, particle loaded scaffolds with micron-sized composite fibers with potential application in bone TE.