Porous Polymer Scaffolds for the Maintenance of Stem Cell Pluripotency

Stem cells have vast potential in areas such as tissue engineering and drug discovery as they can transform into any adult cell type. However, current methods for growing them do not produce ideal cells, which restricts their use. This thesis develops a new synthetic scaffold that allows stem cells to be cultured in a precisely controlled, animal component-free, 3D environment while also maintaining their stem cell properties.