Computational methods in the modeling of scaffolds for tissue engineering

Abstract

Tissue engineering uses porous biomaterial scaffolds to support the complex tissue healing process to fulfill two main functions: (1) to support mechanical loading and (2) to allow mass transport. Computational methods have been extensively applied to characterize scaffold morphology and to simulate different biological processes of tissue engineering. In addition, phenomena such a cell seeding, cell migration, cell proliferation, cell differentiation, vascularisation, oxygen consumption, mass transport or scaffold degradation can be simulated using computational methods. A review of the different methods used to model scaffolds in tissue engineering is described in this chapter.