Project Title: Consultancy on the fabrication of scaffolds for bone regeneration  

Acronym: Art. 83

Funding Entity: Affiliated Stomatology Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (GMU)

Participating Entities:  University of Extremadura

Duration: 1/10/2016 – 31/09/2017

Budget: 14 000 €

Principal Investigator (PI): Pedro Miranda

Number of researchers: 2

Abstract:

Considering that vascularization is a prerequisite for osteogenesis, an advanced design of large customized porous β-tricalcium phosphate (TCP) scaffolds with biomimetic vascular hierarchy was developed, which upon embedding of femoral axial vascular bundles significantly improved overall vascularity of the scaffolds. Such scaffolds also promoted osteogenesis when they were coated with recombinant bone morphogenetic protein-2 (rhBMP-2). Compared to the conventional TCP scaffolds, the newly designed multi-channeled β-TCP scaffolds led to adequate blood vessels and bone-like tissue formation throughout their porous hierarchy within 4 weeks of implantation. Especially, the scaffolds coated with rhBMP-2 and embedded with flow-through vascular bundle (FVB) were able to form more uniform vascularized bone within 2 weeks post-implantation. Based on the clinical, radiographic, angiographic and histological assessments, the newly designed multichanneled scaffolds were found to be promising for successful recovery of large bone defects.