Bio-based polymers, supercritical fluids and tissue engineering

• Biopolymers are essential components for tissue engineering (TE) applications.
• Supercritical fluids may be used for biopolymers processing avoiding toxic chemicals.
• The wide library of biopolymers enables to meet the requirements of the specific TE application.

Tissue engineering and health care involve the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of diseases with the ultimate goal to improve people's quality of life by developing advanced materials and therapeutic approaches based on scaffolds and drug delivery. Bio-based polymers are excellent candidate materials for these purposes as, for example, they provide biophysical and biochemical properties able to induce the correct biological response for both in vitro and in vivo applications. This review aims to provide the reader with an overview of the use of bio-based polymers, as well as their blends and composites, for tissue engineering and health care purposes. Special emphasis is given to supercritical fluid processing of bio-based polymers for drug delivery and scaffold fabrication, as they enable the preparation of biomedical systems and avoid the use of chemicals potentially harmful to cells and living tissues. The last part of this review highlights some significant in vitro and in vivo applications of bio-based polymeric scaffolds for the regeneration of specific tissues, namely bone, cartilage, blood vessel, nerve, skin and dermis.

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