Simon Birkmann

Master student

3D printing of bioactive glass based scaffolds for bone regeneration

 

Supervisors: Vera Bednarzig, Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Aldo R. Boccaccini

The repair and regeneration of large bone defects resulting from disease, traumatic injuries or aging, which cannot be cured by the bone itself, remains a significant clinical challenge and requires bone grafts or bone substitute materials which can be fabricated from composites of bioactive glasses (BGs) and biopolymers [1]. To treat large-scale bone defects three-dimensional (3D) printing offers the possibility to create patient-specific bioactive porous scaffolds that possess controlled micro-architectures for bridging bone defects in complex configurations [2]. The aim of this Master thesis is to fabricate 3D printed interconnecting scaffolds made from combinations of different BGs and biopolymers. The manufactured scaffolds will be compared in terms of mechanical properties, biodegradation behaviour, bioactivity and biological performance.

[1]    K. Rezwan et al., “Biodegradable and bioactive porous polymer/inorganic composite scaffolds for bone tissue engineering”, Biomaterials 27 (2006) 3413-3431.

[2]    L. Zhang, G. Yang, B. N. Johnson, and X. Jia, “Three-dimensional (3D) printed scaffold and material selection for bone repair,” Acta Biomater., 84 (2019) 16–33.