AUTORA: Yaiza Penabad Carrillo

TUTORES: Dra. Clara Pereyra y Dr. Diego Valor

GRADO: Biotecnología

CURSO: 2021-2022

RESUMEN:

Congenital diseases, cancer and various traumas can cause damage to our organs and tissues, causing our quality of life to be greatly affected when artificial prostheses, transplants, drug therapies or surgical repairs fail to allow functional tissue to be obtained or are aesthetically unsatisfactory.

Tissue engineering allows the development of alternatives for the regeneration of the different types of body tissues that a patient may need, allowing the reduction of the need for organ donors and the reduction of problems related to their transplantation. In this aspect, the generation of biodegradable polymeric devices with porous scaffold structure, which simulate the conditions of the extracellular matrix and in which the adhesion and proliferation of the patient’s cells can be promoted, are having a broad scientific impact.

With all this in mind, the main objective of this TFG is defined, which turns out to be the elaboration of scaffolds that can be used for application in tissue engineering. Specifically, poly(D,L-lactide-co-glycolic) (PLGA) was used as the main polymer because it seemed to confer mechanical properties suitable for the foaming process; and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)-poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT) was used with the intention of causing an increase in the conductivity of the scaffold, a property that is beneficial to provide overstimulation to the cell growth process. Both were treated in the RESS250 equipment, based on the SSI (Supercritical Solvent Impregnation) technique, which allowed its use to carry out, in a unique and exclusive way, the supercritical foaming process using CO₂ as a solvent and without the need to impregnate any type of substance.

With the experiments carried out, it was intended to study three relevant variables in this technique: temperature, operating time and pressure; in order to compare the results of porosity, expansion factor and conductivity, among others, in addition to verifying that the scaffolds obtained were suitable for application in tissue engineering.

Finally, it was possible to partially prove that these polymers had properties suitable for use as scaffolds in tissue regeneration, since the porosity and conductivity necessary for some biomedical applications has been obtained.