Advancing Scaffold Technology
(From Innovations Report). The use of biodegradable, often nanoscale-engineered, scaffolds spreading in tissue engineering circles, and a large future market for this technology seems certain. So it is that materials scientists have a strong incentive - sources of funding - to develop better scaffolds: "Flock technology for example is applied in an industrial scale to the production of the velvety surfaces of spectacle-cases. Now, this method shall help to produce new types of medical implants. In order to create resorbable scaffolds, membranes made of mineralised collagen are covered with a gelatine-based biocompatible glue. In the next step, biologically degradable fibres are flocked on the tapes. ... This way a kind of 'velvet structure' is created on which cells can be seeded with a high density."
Link: http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/materials_science/report-53368.html