Laminin Microdroplet Deposition on Conducting Polymer Films for Neural Regeneration

Conducting polymers are valuable tools in tissue engineering as they can play an important role in enhancing cellular response to guidance cues due to their electrical conductivity. Extracellular matrix proteins like laminin can provide a strong guidance cue to direct cellular regrowth. When combined, these two can prove to be unbeatable alternative for tissue regeneration applications. However, the biggest challenge lies in depositing these proteins on the surface of conducting polymer to get the best response out of neurons for neural regeneration. In this study, various parameters have been optimized to idealize the deposition of laminin on conducting polymer’s surface. From this study, an optimized patterning technique can be established to deposit laminin on PEDOT substrates such that minimum volume of laminin is used, the pattern has very well-balanced distances between adjacent rows and columns, and there is least possible void space between the droplets both in horizontal and vertical directions.