Chapters authored
Fabrication Methodologies of Biomimetic and Bioactive Scaffolds for Tissue Engineering Applications
Tissue engineering has offered wide technologies for developing functional biomaterials substitutes for repair and regeneration of damaged tissue and organs. Biomimetic materials with their inherent nature to mimic natural materials are possible through the recent advances in the fabrication technology. With the help of porous or dense implants made with biodegradable materials, it is possible to incorporate different vital growth factors, genes, drugs, stem cells and proteins. In this review, we presented various fabrication methodologies of biomimetic and bioactive scaffolds for tissue engineering applications. An overview of the nanocomposites of biomaterials is presented. Further an example of one of the hybrid nanocomposite material is given for additive manufacturing.
Part of the book: Materials, Technologies and Clinical Applications
Innovative Hybrid Materials with Improved Tensile Strength Obtained by 3D Printing
Barium titanate (BT) and barium strontium titanate (BST) are one of the most studied ferroelectric materials with excellent piezoelectric properties, which can be used to stimulate bone formation by applying an electrical field. It is known that this ceramic is biocompatible and can be used for medical applications. New hybrid materials based on BT and collagen and BST and collagen, with potential applications in bone reconstruction, are presented, emphasizing the potential of fabricating 3D structures by integrating hydrothermal synthesis with additive manufacturing. Designing such structures may take advantage of rheological characterization at single-molecule level for some elastic biopolymers like titin and collagen and their molecular dissection into structural motifs that independently contribute to the protein viscoelasticity. Atomic force spectroscopy measurements on synthetic polypeptides showed that a polypeptide chain containing Ig domain modules is protected against rupture at high stretch by Ig domain unfolding, an important mechanism for stress relaxation in titin molecules. This property may be exploited to enhance the tensile strength of a 3D structure by adding specific synthetic polypeptides to the composition of the printing paste.
Part of the book: Biomaterials