Bolger, MorganGroynom, RebeccaBogie, KathLavik, Erin2020-01-282020-01-282019-11-04Bolger, Morgan; Groynom, Rebecca; Bogie, Kath; Lavik, Erin; Reporter Scaffolds for Clinically Relevant Cell Transplantation Studies; Annals of Biomedical Engineering (2019); https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10439-019-02393-zhttps://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-019-02393-zhttp://hdl.handle.net/11603/17132There are a number of cell therapies that are either in clinical trials or moving toward clinical trials, particularly for diseases of the retina. One of the challenges with cell therapies is tracking the status of cells over time. Genetic manipulation can facilitate this, but it can limit the clinical application of the cells. There are a host of fluorophores that have been developed to assess the status of cells, but these molecules tend to be cleared rapidly from cells. There are preclinical strategies that use degradable scaffolds, and we hypothesized that these scaffolds could be used to track the state of cells during preclinical studies. In this work, we explored whether fluorophores could be delivered from simple scaffolds fabricated under extremely harsh conditions, be active upon release, and report on the cells growing on the scaffolds over time. We encapsulated CellROX® Green Reagent, and pHrodo™ Red AM in poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) scaffolds, showed that they could be delivered over weeks and were still active upon release and taken up by cells. These experiments provide the foundation for using scaffolds to deliver molecules to report on cells.13 pagesen-USThis item is likely protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Unless on a Creative Commons license, for uses protected by Copyright Law, contact the copyright holder or the author.This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Annals of Biomedical Engineering. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-019-02393-z.Access to this item will begin on 2020-11-04polymerretinaage related macular degenerationAMDcellular transplantationtissue engineeringscaffoldpolyesterdrug deliveryText