Advisory Committee Chair
Andrei Stanishevsky
Advisory Committee Members
Namasivayam Ambalavanan
Cheng-Chien Chen
Alen Eberhardt
Ryoichi Kawai
Sergey Vyazovkin
Document Type
Dissertation
Date of Award
2023
Degree Name by School
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) College of Arts and Sciences
Abstract
A biomaterial for tissue repair is globally sought after, as transplant surgeries and general wound healing have a strong need for a manufactured scaffold that mimics the natural body’s tissue in morphology, composition, and properties. This research presents a nanofibrous (NF) fish skin gelatin-based (FSG) substrate fabricated through an uncommon high-yield method of Alternating Current electrospinning that mimics that can mimic the natural body’s extracellular matrix (ECM). An ECM is the first step in tissue repair. Fabrication through electrospinning gave the NF FSG substrate an identical mimic of the natural body’s extracellular matrix morphology with nanofiber diameter on the order of 175 ± 19nm as spun. This nanofibrous FSG substrate is biocompatible having 10.2% cell confluence after 72 hours in a physiological environment. Additionally, it is bioactive as gelatin and other incorporated polysaccharides provide nutrients for wound repair. The FSG ECM is biomechanically viable as the stress-strain curve follows that of natural body tissue while the elastic moduli with post processing treatments in dry condition was 11.4 ± MPa and in wet conditions 35.1 ± 7.2kPa. The fabrication method of electrospinning is scale-up making the FSG ECM mass producible with a production rate of 12.6g/h. This nanofibrous FSG substrate is an innovative biomaterial platform as it retains ideal biomaterial properties of biocompatibility, bioactiveness, biomechanically viable, and mass-producible.
Recommended Citation
Kennell, Amanda, "Alternating Current Electrospinning and Characterization of Nanofibrous Fish Skin Gelatin as an Innovative Biomaterial Platform" (2023). All ETDs from UAB. 423.
https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/etd-collection/423