ALBA Synchrotron
Dr. Ana Tojeira - IPL- Polytechnic Institute of Leiria (Centre for Rapid and Sustainable Product Development)
When
Contact info
Inma Hernández
Traumatic musculoskeletal injury is a major concern to European countries as it is the utmost cause for young adults disability. Bone tissue loss not only impacts quality of life of patients but also places a huge socioeconomic burden to the patients families and communities. Such trauma cases often culminate in to large bone defects which are not healed by natural bone regeneration process. Hence, complex and highly precise biomedical technologies have been used to respond to healthcare demands with customised products available within shorter periods of time.
Tissue engineering is an interdisciplinary field that requires the integration of expertise from clinicians, cell biologists, engineers and material scientists, to make progress in the development and deployment of biological substitutes that restore, maintain, or improve bone tissue function. Key aspects of the top-down approach to the biofabrication of these biological substitutes are focused on the development of tissue engineered constructs (TEC) or scaffolds, designed to mimic the chemical composition and physical architecture of natural extracellular matrix in order to facilitate cell adhesion, proliferation, differentiation and new tissue formation.
The biofabrication of tri-dimensional scaffolds can be a challenging task as it depends not only on the biomaterial but also on the fabrication technique and processing parameters. In order to obtain reproducible and efficient products, Direct Digital Manufacturing technologies have been used in the development of reproducible and highly porous tri-dimensional scaffolds with controlled geometries, pores sizes and interconnectivity. In this contribution, we will show how macro-to-nanoscale features of scaffolds can be tuned through the choice of materials, biofabrication technology and processing parameters and the value of synchrotron based studies to this programme.