Composite scaffold development and bioreactor culture for bone tissue engineering

Abstract

Bone tissue engineering involves seeding bone cells onto a scaffold, culturing this construct so that mineralisation occurs (by using signalling mechanisms such as growth factors or bioreactors) and then implanting it into a defect site in the body. This is called the tissue engineering triad: combining cells, scaffold and signalling to engineer tissue in vitro. In this work, the focus was on two aspects of the triad: scaffold development and signalling using a bioreactor. The general aim in this work was to develop a tissue engineered construct with enhanced osteogenic capabilities due to its structural and material properties, populated by a homogeneous distribution of stimulated cells.