Simplicity

I am beginning to think that my machine diagram is easy to understand. My concern is that it is overly simplistic. I mean essentially the "device" I am analyzing is a tissue engineered scaffold for ACL replacement. I am focusing on one of these scaffolds which is described in an article entitled "Fiber-based tissue-engineered scaffold for ligament replacement: design considerations and in vitro evaluation." The design of this scaffold focuses on architecture, porosity, degradability, and cell source. Architecture covers the amount of surface area. While porosity also covers the amount of surface area, it additionally involves the pore diameter. Both surface area and pore diameter function to encourage the body's ability to accept the new ACL scaffold and generate new cells. PLAGA is the biodegradable material being used to create the fibers in the scaffold. It is imperative that the fibers degrade over time and the body does not treat them as foreign materials. Biocompatibility is essential. The cell source primarily focuses on the body's cellular response. This device has not been used in humans, but rabbit ACL cells as well as mouse fibroblasts were put on the scaffold under lab conditions that simulated body conditions to see the potential for cell migration and attachment. In other words, to see if more cells were generated and to see how they moved along the scaffold.

The PLAGA fibers get braided together using 3-D braiding methods in either a circular or rectangular geometry. These entwined fibers get tested on their mechanical properties such as tensile modulus, or tendency to be deformed when a force is applied, and , maximum tensile load, or the maximum force the device can take before certain areas deform due to disproportionate amount of force and stress. The scaffold had 3 regions all made of the same PLAGA fibers, but these fibers were braided at different angles. The regions were the "femoral tunnel attachment site, ligament region, and tibial tunnel attachment site" (Copper et. al., 2004). A higher angle was used at the ends that would be attached to bone, while a lower angle was used for the ligament region. Bones are not flexible like ligaments, which explains the use of the higher angle to enable healing. After writing this, I guess my device is not as simple as I thought. I think this should be a good paper.