Synthesis of Electrical Conductive Graphene Based Substrates for Growth and Differentiation of Neural Progenitors (Derived from hPSCs) Designed for Neural Tissue Engineering Applications

One of the major ends of tissue engineering is to control microenvironmental factors by providing physical, chemical and electrical properties of biomaterials in order to affect the final fate of stem cells. Electrical signals have been shown to have great impact on differentiation or proliferation of various cell types including neural stem cells. [1] Numerous nanomaterials with unique electrical properties have been used as a stem cell substrates or scaffolds such as carbon nanotubes (CNT) or conductive polymers. [2] Graphene is a novel one atom thick sheet of carbon atoms arranged in 2D honeycomb structure that is attracting a great deal of attention owing to its magnificent structural and electronic properties that has the potential to be significantly useful in tissue engineering applications. [3]