Conductive Scaffolds for Bone Tissue Engineering: Current State and Future Outlook

Abstract

Bone tissue engineering strategies attempt to regenerate bone tissue lost due to injury or disease. Three-dimensional (3D) scaffolds maintain structural integrity and provide support, while improving tissue regeneration through amplified cellular responses between implanted materials and native tissues. Through this, scaffolds that show great osteoinductive abilities as well as desirable mechanical properties have been studied. Recently, scaffolding for engineered bone-like tissues have evolved with the use of conductive materials for increased scaffold bioactivity. These materials make use of several characteristics that have been shown to be useful in tissue engineering applications and combine them in the hope of improved cellular responses through stimulation (i.e., mechanical or electrical). With the addition of conductive materials, these bioactive synthetic bone substitutes could result in improved regeneration outcomes by reducing current factors limiting the effectiveness of existing scaffolding materials. This review seeks to overview the challenges associated with the current state of bone tissue engineering, the need to produce new grafting substitutes, and the promising future that conductive materials present towards alleviating the issues associated with bone repair and regeneration.

Could Curdlan/Whey Protein Isolate/Hydroxyapatite Biomaterials Be Considered as Promising Bone Scaffolds?—Fabrication, Characterization, and Evaluation of Cytocompatibility towards Osteoblast Cells In Vitro

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“…There is a necessity to create a biomaterial [1] for hard tissue [2] implanted scaffold applications [3] to reduce the global burden of bone disease and fractures [4]. These implanted scaffolds are translational therapeutic approaches [5] using tissue engineering techniques [6] to treat degenerative diseases [7] and improve cartilage regeneration efficiency [8] for osteoarthritis patients. At present, titanium filler [9] is still the most commonly used in metallic scaffolds [10] in advanced combinations with polymer-based biomaterials [11][12][13] during the green composite fabrication processes [14].…”

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