Material Aspects of Bone Tissue Engineering

Bone tissue engineering is a highly studied topic in material science in the recent decades. Basic principles of chemistry and biology along with advanced material science techniques should be used in order to elucidate the parameters which may influence the bone tissue growth on artificial implants. Progress has been made to an advanced level but still there is room for improvements. Especially in case of large bone defects, finding a ‘universal’ replacement implant is difficult. Patient specific data have to be taken in to account to get a good osteointegration. Metal and ceramic implants are commonly tested in case of large bone defects, but a good mimic of natural bone is hard due to various reasons. However fine tuning these materials and combination of these materials are finding good results. Addition of polymer materials in such implants is a recent effective attempt. Different combinations of these materials along with functionalisation using bioactive molecules make the bone tissue engineering nearly perfect. This presentation will discuss about the recent trends in the materials used in bone tissue engineering.