Polyelectrolyte Coatings for Sequential Delivery of Growth Factors: Automation and Characterization

TL;DRAbstract

Mimicking the body's natural healing process, which involves a variety of growth factors and cytokines produced by cells in a staged and sequential manner, has been shown to be a favorable technique in the field of tissue engineering. This project is focused on the fabrication and characterization of a polyelectrolyte multilayer (PEM) coating with and without a calcium phosphate (CaP) barrier layer capable of multiple growth factor delivery. The PEM coatings are created using a layer-by-layer (LBL) process in a dip coating machine in order to create uniform layers of oppositely charged material that can be used to deliver embedded growth factors. A custom sample holder was designed and fabricated using 3-D printing in order to minimize use of the expensive reagents. Diffusion and mixture of multiple growth factors through PEM-only coatings motivated the introduction of a CaP barrier layer. The CaP layer is precipitated using the simulated body fluid technique over the first growth fact

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