Porous foams with nanometre-scale patches to which cells and proteins can adhere could one day be used in tissue engineering.

Credit: PRIYALAKSHMI VISWANATHAN/J. AM. CHEM. SOC.

A group led by Giuseppe Battaglia at the University of Sheffield, UK, and Adam Engler at the University of California, San Diego, used an established technique to create porous polystyrene-based foams (pictured). By incorporating various other polymers into their foams, the researchers controlled the surface topology of the pores and thus the distribution and size of the places where cells and proteins could attach over three dimensions.

The technique could allow bioengineers to create self-assembling scaffolds that control, for example, where stem cells adhere.

J. Am. Chem. Soc. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ja308523f (2012)