Jiong Yang

Mainly doing research on regeneral medical science and bioengineering. Now processing a project involving tissue engineering. The project aims to solve some of the limitations of Additive Manufacturing (AM) by exploring a new route to produce functional gradient scaffolds for tissue engineering by developing one co-axial extrusion head and one thermal gradient nozzle. 

Co-axial extrusion head. This extrusion head enables the fabrication of co-axial filaments embedded with multi-materials. With the separate temperature control for the material chambers, a wide range of materials can be applied, including natural biopolymers, synthetic biopolymers and polymer/ceramic composites. High scaffolds design freedom will also be possible through the fabrication of multi-material constructs with heterogeneous compositions.

Thermal gradient nozzle. This type of nozzle allows for precise control of the temperature distribution from the top to the bottom of the nozzle enabling the control the micro-structural evolution during the extrusion process, creating scaffolds of filaments having specific crystallinity and anisotropy structures.

The development of these two designs, which represents a step forward regarding the current state of the art, will enable to design and fabricate more effective scaffolds matching the mechanical and surface characteristics of the surrounding tissue and enabling the incorporation of high number of cells distributed.