Fibralign™ Product

Fibralign has developed a technology to produce Nanoweave™ collagen-based matrices, which can display three different tissue patterns

• woven-skin-like
• aligned-braided
• crimped-tendon-like

This technology allows control over parameters such as mechanical strength, structural uniformity, average fibril sizes and optical characteristics. It has the flexibility necessary to create 3D nanostructured matrices tailored for specific research and medical applications. Starting with readily available collagen solutions, the process can be controlled to produce complex anisotropic matrices, which accurately mimic native tissue.

These three basic types of oriented collagen matrices are currently available for evaluation. They are deposited on glass slides and mounted in a glass bottom petri dish. Each matrix can be made from collagen Type 1 materials: rat-tail, bovine or human. Fibralign is seeking customer feedback so that it may tune its process to match specific requirements. Nanoweave™ collagen matrices can be ordered at www.advancedbiomatrix.com.

The following AFM (Atomic Force Microscopy) images depict the surfaces of the three basic types of collagen matrices.

Basic Fibralign Matrices

Tendon-like	Woven	Aligned-braided

 

Competitive comparision

By way of comparison, two other commercial methods of producing collagen matrices are described.

• Casting method cannot produce an oriented collagen matrix.
• Electro-spinning can produce aligned collagen fibrils, but they bear only slight resemblance to the natural ECM structure.

Different research methods can produce aligned collagen matrices, but they have low mechanical strength, problems with scale-up, reproducibility, orientation and quality.