Screening of a Biodegradable Polymer Library for Optimal Scaffolding for Mineralized Tissue Engineering

Combinatorial libraries have been developed recently for identifying large numbers of potentially bioactive compounds or materials for a range of medical applications[1]. While drug companies have been using methods for screening libraries of compounds for therapeutic benefit for years, only recently have libraries been exploited for the generation of scaffolds for regenerative medicine[2–4]. Our lab has developed a library of photocrosslinkable and biodegradable poly(β-amino ester)s (PBAEs)[5] that can be easily tuned for stiffness and degradation for a variety of applications [6]. Here, we screened these materials for their degradation behavior, mechanical properties, and cellular interactions sequentially using specified criteria to identify potential candidates for scaffolding in bone tissue engineering. One candidate material was further investigated for scaffold processing, biocompatibility, and the ability to form mineralized tissue in a rodent cranial defect model with the addition of osteoinductive factors.