News

Although, osseous tissue is bestowed with self-repairing mechanism from micro-cracks and miniature damages, bone defects surpassing the critical size defects demands biomimetic scaffold which can henceforth be introduced to the bone defect. 

 

The goal of our research is to fabricate novel bioactive porous metalloid–bioceramic composites for bone tissue engineering (BTE). Herein, for the first time silicon (pseudo¬–metal or metalloid) element have been introduced in the scaffolds taking advantage of its osteostimulatory properties. The selective laser melting (SLM) have been used to fabricate the metalloid–bioceramic composites which offers several benefits when compared with the other counterpart techniques for additive manufacturing since SLM offers wide range of the pore sizes of the scaffolds required for BTE. 

 

It was inferred that silicon acted as the main energy absorber of the YAG laser facilitating the unification of the ceramic particles. It was also concluded that altering the biomimetic design not only resulted in the tampering of the mechanical properties towards load-bearing component of the bone but also resulted in the differential expression of the primary transcription factors like RUNX2 (Runt-related transcription factor-2) and OSX (Transcription factor Sp7). The scaffolds also exhibited the possible immunomodulation effect. 

These findings suggests that the as-fabricated scaffolds can be used for assorted bone types like long and flat bones based on the biomimetic design. 

 

Nikhil Kamboj

Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering

Tallinn University of Technology,

Ehitajate 5, 19086, Tallinn, Estonia