Personalized scaffolds for bone defect regeneration
Additive manufacturing (AM) technologies could be the leverage for the generation of precise and personalized scaffold constructs enabling improved bone regeneration and remodeling outcomes. Our team strives to develop methodologies and generate knowledge that could lead to mechanistic understanding of scaffold-guided bone defect regeneration enabling precision in scaffold-assisted bone regenerative therapy.
You are here:
Scaffold-guided bone defect regeneration in disease models
The management of bone defects remains a major clinical challenge, particularly if defects are of critical size. Critical-sized defects do not heal and require in-depth planning of their treatment. Currently used therapeutic approaches include bone grafting, distraction osteogenesis, or the so-called “Masquelet” technique. There are clinical evidences to guide treatment strategies for critical-sized bone defects. Nonetheless, healing outcomes are highly variable dependent on the site and size of the defect and patient-related aspects (i.e. age, lifestyle, comorbid metabolic and systemic disorders). So far, bone defects treatments are similar in all patients despite population heterogeneity which result in different regenerative outcomes. Leveraging on network medicine approaches, we strive to better understand the mechanistic differences in scaffold-guided bone defect regeneration in different disease models, e.g. type 2 diabetes, chronological ageing, enabling the selection of the best possible scaffolds.