Strategies for the design of bi-layer scaffolds for the regenerative medicine and tissue engineering.

In the field of regenerative medicine and tissue engineering 3-dimensional collagen scaffolds play an important role to guide the formation of functional novel tissue structures. Thereby, different cell types often have to be separated for a defined period of time to generate multilayer tissue structures like skin or to control cell migration in the process of tissue regeneration. Such applications require heterogeneous scaffold structures with a bi-layer structure. Such scaffolds can decelerate or prevent cell migration by a barrier of compacted material. Additionally they may provide different pore sizes in both of the separated scaffold areas to perfectly
suit the needs of different cell types. With the patented MBIT technology such materials can be generated in a single freeze-drying process. This novel approach can drastically reduce the production costs for 3-dimensional biomaterials with a multilayer structure because a stepwise construction of those scaffolds or a subsequent combination of two or more separately produced material layers is no longer necessary.