In the design of scaffolds for tissue engineering applications, morphological parameters
such as pore size, shape, and interconnectivity, as well as transport properties,
should always be tailored in view of their clinical application. In this work, we
demonstrate that a regular and ordered porous texture is fundamental to achieve an
even cell distribution within the scaffold under perfusion seeding. To prove our hypothesis,
two sets of alginate scaffolds were fabricated using two different technological approaches
of the same method: gas-in-liquid foam templating. In the first one, foam was obtained
by insufflating argon in a solution of alginate and a surfactant under stirring. In
the second one, foam was generated inside a flow-focusing microfluidic device under
highly controlled and reproducible conditions. As a result, in the former case the
derived scaffold (GF) was characterized by polydispersed pores and interconnects,
while in the latter (μFL), the porous structure was highly regular both with respect
to the spatial arrangement of pores and interconnects and their monodispersity. Cell
seeding within perfusion bioreactors of the two scaffolds revealed that cell population
inside μFL scaffolds was quantitatively higher than in GF. Furthermore, seeding efficiency
data for μFL samples were characterized by a lower standard deviation, indicating
higher reproducibility among replicates. Finally, these results were validated by
simulation of local flow velocity (CFD) inside the scaffolds proving that μFL was
around one order of magnitude more permeable than GF.