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Sean Bittner, a graduate student at Rice University, holds a sample of a 3D printed scaffold that could one day help heal osteochondral injuries of the type often experienced by athletes. The material mimics the cartilage structure gradient with respect to the bone located at the end of the long bones. Credit: Jeff Fitlow / Rice University
Bioscientists are getting closer to artificial 3D printed fabrics to help heal the bones and cartilage typically damaged by sport-related injuries such as knees, ankles and elbows.
Scientists from Rice University and the University of Maryland announced their first success with engineering scaffolds mimicking the physical characteristics of osteochondral tissue, namely a hard bone located under a compressible layer of cartilage that appears as the smooth surface of the ends of long bones.
Injuries to these bones, ranging from small cracks to ruptures, can be painful and often hinder the athletes' careers. Osteochondral lesions can also lead to disabling arthritis.
The degraded nature of the cartilage in the bone and its porosity have made lab replication difficult, but Rice scientists, led by bioengineer Antonios Mikos and graduate student Sean Bittner, have used the same method. 3D printing to make what they believe to be appropriate material for implantation.
Their results are reported in Acta Biomaterialia.
"Athletes are disproportionately affected by these injuries, but they can affect everyone," said Bittner, a third-year civil engineering student at Rice, a National Science Foundation Scholar and lead author of the paper. "I think it will be a powerful tool to help people with common sports injuries."
Sean Bittner, a graduate student at Rice University, is holding a 3D printed scaffold designed to help heal osteochondral injuries. The initial study is a proof of concept to see if printed structures can mimic the gradual transition from a smooth and compressible cartilage to a hard bone at the end of long bones. Credit: Jeff Fitlow / Rice University
The key is to mimic a tissue that progressively pbades from cartilage (chondral tissue) to the surface at the bone (osteo) located below. Biomaterials at Rice has printed a support with custom blends of a polymer for the first and a ceramic for the second with embedded pores that would allow the patient's own cells and blood vessels to infiltrate into the body. Implant, thus allowing it to be part of the natural process. bone and cartilage.
"Overall, the composition will be the same from one patient to the other," Bittner said. "Porosity is included so that the vascular system can grow from the native bone.We do not have to manufacture the blood vessels ourselves."
Sean Bittner, a graduate student at Rice University, is holding a 3D printed scaffold designed to help heal osteochondral injuries. The initial study is a proof of concept to see if printed structures can mimic the gradual transition from a smooth and compressible cartilage to a hard bone at the end of long bones. Credit: Jeff Fitlow / Rice University
The future of the project will be how to print an osteochondral implant that is perfectly adapted to the patient and allows the porous implant to grow and bind with bone and cartilage.
Mikos said the collaboration was an immediate success for the Complex Tissue Engineering Center (CECT), a center of the Maryland National Institutes of Health, Rice and the Wake Forest School of Medicine, which was developing bio-print tools to answer fundamental scientific questions and translate new knowledge into clinical practice.
"In this context, what we have done here has an impact and could lead to new solutions of regenerative medicine," said Mikos.
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More information:
Sean M. Bittner et al, Manufacture and mechanical characterization of 3D printed uniform and vertical scaffolds for the engineering of bone and osteochondral tissue, Acta Biomaterialia (2019). DOI: 10.1016 / j.actbio.2019.03.041
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