ABSTRACT
Advances in biomedical engineering have led to an understanding of the human body's capacity for anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) healing if provided the correct impetus--a long-term bioresorbable scaffold that anticipates the defect site's requirements. Tissue engineering an ACL requires a scaffold that can meet multiple and often conflicting mechanical and biological design requirements. The design and characterization of a hydrophilic silk scaffold is presented as an example of the preclinical testing required to fully characterize a scaffold for ACL reconstruction. We hypothesize that by providing a structural scaffold which anticipates ACL repair mechanisms, an "engineered" autologous ligament with excellent functional integrity can be developed by the body itself. Mechanical, biological, and patient-clinician testing demonstrate that the hydrophilic silk scaffold is a mechanically robust, biocompatible, long-term bioresorbable ACL scaffold with demonstrated safety that can be implanted in accordance with standard surgical procedures.
