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As life expectancy increases with advances in medical care during the last decades, tissue engineering of bone, blood vessels, skin and other organs has gained significant interest within the scientific community. Dealing with a complex and sensitive biological system such as the human body, the development of materials for tissue engineering and other biomedical applications such as dental filling materials is extremely challenging and the requirements are manifold. Biocompatibility, from a chemical, structural and mechanical point of view is the main issue. If degradation is desired, times must match the healing and regeneration process of the replaced tissue, and lead to non-toxic degradation products. In the group of biodegradable polymers one can distinguish between natural and synthetic materials. Natural polymers based on proteins and polysaccharides were the first biodegradable materials to be used clinically. Poly(α-esters) such as poly(lactic acid) (PLA), poly(glycolic acid) (PGA) and copolymers thereof comprise the earliest and most extensively investigated class of synthetic biodegradable polymers. Other important examples are poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) or poly(propylene fumarate) (PPF). Unfortunately, all of these polyester materials undergo an autocatalytic bulk erosion process which can cause scaffolds to fail prematurely. In addition, abrupt release of these acidic
degradation products can cause a strong inflammatory response.
