Nayla J. Lores

3D printing offers many advantages for tissue engineering applications, including rapid manufacturing, high precision and custom design [1]. The scaffold architecture is of paramount importance for providing an optimized microenvironment to favour the generation of new tissue and to allow the flow and/or diffusion of nutrients and metabolites among cells and the surrounding extracellular matrix (ECM). In order to simulate the properties of a specific tissue, e.g. bone tissue (mechanical strength, chemical reactivity, surface chemistry, bioactivity and biocompatibility, etc.), neat polymers are often not sufficient; it is therefore crucial to add specific bioactive materials to modify their interaction with the microenvironment [2]. Bioactive glasses or glass-ceramics are widely adopted as inorganic fillers for biopolymer scaffolds in bone tissue engineering [3, 4]. In context, the aim of this project is to evaluate the in vitro biological performance of different polyesterurethane composite 3D printed scaffolds, comparing their bioactivity, biodegradability, cell viability, adhesion, proliferation, and morphology features. The project is carried out in collaboration with the home institution, _INTEMA _(LINK: _https://mardelplata-conicet.gob.ar/intema/_ ), Mar del Plata, Argentina, under supervision of Dr. P. C. Caracciolo and Prof. G. A. Abraham.

[1] P.C. Caracciolo, N. J. Lores, G. A. Abraham, Polyurethane-based structures obtained by additive manufacturing technologies, Chapter 8 in Materials for Biomedical Engineering: Hydrogels and Polymer-Based Scaffolds. Elsevier (2019) 235-258

[2] S. Wu, X. Liu, K.W.K. Yeung, C. Liu, X. Yang. Biomimetic porous scaffolds for bone tissue engineering, Biomimetic porous scaffolds for bone tissue engineering. Materials Science and Engineering R 80 (2014) 1-36.

[3] G. Conoscenti, F.C. Pavia, F.E. Ciraldo, L. Liverani, V. Brucato, V. La Carrubba, A.R. Boccaccini. In vitro degradation and bioactivity of composite poly-L-lactic (PLLA)/bioactive glass (BG) scaffolds: comparison of 45S5 and 1393BG compositions. Journal of Materials Science 53 (2018) 2362-2374.

[4] K. Rezwan, et al., Biodegradable and bioactive porous polymer/inorganic composite scaffolds for bone tissue engineering, Biomaterials 27 (2006) 3413-3431.