Abstract Scope |
Many human body tissues, such as the osteochondral tissue, are graded in structure and hence in function. The structure of osteochondral tissue is multilayered, with the layers of articular cartilage, calcified cartilage and vascularized subchondral bone providing different functions. For repairing osteochondral defects that extend from articular cartilage to subchondral bone, complex, graded scaffolds need to be developed in osteochondral tissue engineering. Another example of tissue with a graded structure is bone. The shaft of a human long bone is graded in pore size which increases from the cortical part to the cancellous part. For scaffold-based tissue engineering, assisted by computer-aided design and empowered by 3D printing technologies, biomimicking graded scaffolds of complex structures can be designed and fabricated for tissue engineering applications. This talk will present and discuss our research on designing and 3D printing of graded scaffolds, either biopolymer-and-biocomposite-based or bioceramic-based, for osteochondral tissue or bone regeneration. |