State of the art and future directions of scaffold-based bone engineering from a biomaterials perspective.
Scaffold-based bone tissue engineering aims to repair/regenerate bone defects. Such a treatment concept involves seeding autologous osteogenic cells throughout a biodegradable scaffold to create a scaffold-cell hybrid that may be called a tissue-engineered construct (TEC). A variety of materials and scaffolding fabrication techniques for bone tissue engineering have been investigated over the past two decades. This review aims to discuss the advances in bone engineering from a scaffold material point of view. In the first part the reader is introduced to the basic principles of bone engineering. The important properties of the biomaterials and the scaffold design in the making of tissue engineered bone constructs are discussed in detail, with special emphasis placed on the new material developments, namely composites made of synthetic polymers and calcium phosphates. Advantages and limitations of these materials are analysed along with various architectural parameters of scaffolds important for bone tissue engineering, e.g. porosity, pore size, interconnectivity and pore-wall microstructures.
Division of Bioengineering, National University of Singapore, 7 Engineering Dr 1, Singapore 11757. biedwh@nus.edu.sg
Dietmar Werner
DW
Hutmacher
Jan Thorsten
JT
Schantz
Christopher Xu Fu
CX
Lam
Kim Cheng
KC
Tan
Thiam Chye
TC
Lim
D000818:Animals; D001672:Biocompatible Materials / Q000378:metabolism*; D001842:Bone and Bones / Q000166:cytology* / Q000378:metabolism*; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D006801:Humans; D007700:Kinetics; D016062:Porosity; D023822:Tissue Engineering
D001672:Biocompatible Materials