Electrospun inorganic and polymer composite nanofibers for biomedical applications

Abstract

Engineered nanofibers are generally focused on filtration, solar cells, sensors, smart textile fabrication, tissue engineering, etc. Electrospun nanofibers have potential advantages in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, because of the ease in the incorporation of drugs, growth factors, natural materials, and inorganic nanoparticles in to these nanofiber scaffolds. Electrospun nanofiber scaffolds composed of synthetic and natural polymers are being explored as scaffolds similar to natural extracellular matrix for tissue engineering. The requirement of the inorganic composites in the nanofiber scaffolds for favouring hard and soft tissue engineering applications is dealt in detail in the present review. Regarding drug delivery applications of the composite nanofibers, the review emphasizes on wound healing with silver nanoparticles incorporated nanofibers, bone tissue engineering, and cancer chemotherapy with titanium and platinum complexes loaded nanofibers. The review also describes gold nanoparticle loaded nanofibers for cancer diagnosis and cosmetic applications. © 2012 Taylor & Francis.