Interfacial shear strength criteria for tissue-engineered cartilage anchored to porous synthetic scaffolds

grantor: University of TorontoThe development of tissue-engineered constructs formed 'in vitro ' for repairing defects in articular cartilage represents an exciting current research thrust. A major requirement for the success of such constructs is the development of reliable anchorage of 'in vitro'-formed cartilaginous tissues to the underlying synthetic scaffold, particularly under shear loading conditions. In this study, the effect of porous scaffold geometry on the shear deformation characteristics of 'in vitro'-formed cartilage anchored to synthetic porous scaffolds was investigated. A comparison of these properties for the tissue-engineered constructs to those of natural hyaline cartilage-bone interfaces was also performed. This study demonstrated that the shear properties of 'in vitro '-formed cartilage anchored to the porous Ti-based or porous condensed calcium polyphosphate (CCP) scaffolds are 1-2 orders of magnitude less than those of the natural cartilage-bone interface when shear tested at the same strain rate (1 mm/min).M.A.Sc