| Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine fields of life science and engineering strive to address medical challenges to human flourishing. Innovative research has led to many advances in the past two centuries with regards to treatment of orthopaedic trauma, but better options for treatment of bone injuries resulting in bony defects are still needed. Autologous bone grafts remain the standard treatment for segmental defects and non-unions. Engineered bone graft substitutes have failed to promote sufficient bone formation in large defects. The work presented here aims to prove a new platform for engineering bone tissue using 3D bioprinting strategy has the capability of combining multiple clinically relevant biomaterials in biomimetic designs to improve outcomes for engineered bone graft substitutes. The aim of these explorations is to move outcomes toward clinical use and patient benefit.;Herein are presented findings that demonstrate a bioprinting platform for bone tissue engineering involving improvement of materials for 3D printing relative to bone tissue engineering, design interface with 3D medical imaging data, and a biomimetic design strategy to enhance bone regeneration. This system is characterized and used for printing a bone graft in a precise shape, provided by 3D medical imaging, allowing the graft to meet the size and shape requirements of a critically sized defect and achieve better bone healing. |
