1984: On monitoring cell fate in three-dimensional polymeric scaffolds for tissue engineering applications

In cartilage and bone engineering there is a high need for methods to replace traditional tissue and organ transplantation approaches to overcome the currently faced problems of donor shortage and invasiveness of the transplantation procedure. Although many promising advances have been made in the past decades in in vitro tissue engineering, quality control remains a challenge. Most conventional methods to assess the quality of a tissue engineered construct, e.g. by studying cell fate and tissue growth, are destructive. To be able to control such parameters in three-dimensional (3D) scaffolds prior to implantation, non-destructive monitoring methods are required. This thesis describes the assessment of cell behavior in 3D constructs, both by conventional destructive methods and non-destructive methods, to gain more insight in the challenges and potential of applying continuous monitoring in the future.