Developing a Modified Electrospinning Technique to Produce Three-dimensional Nanofibrous Scaffolds

In the past two decades, electrospinning has attracted much attention for application in the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. The main reason is that the architectureof electrospun nanofibers greatly mimics the structure of natural extracellular matrix (ECM) in the body [1]. The majorproblem of these scaffolds is their intrinsically twodimensional (2D) nature which inhibits cellular migration and in-growth. Since three-dimensional (3D) organization of cellsand ECM nanofibrills is the common structure in the most of tissues, this problem is critical and should be addressed tofabricate a real biomimetic electrospun scaffolds for efficient nutrient and waste transport, vascularization and tissue ingrowth [2]. In some reports, increased infiltration of cultured surface has been demonstrated via different modifications of the setup parameters or components [3, 4]. In this study, wehypothesized that loosely packed nanofibers would enable cells to migrate smartly through micro-sized interconnectedpores. Loosely packed nanofibers were achieved through a simple modification of the electrospinning process using an array of focused light bulbs