Short description

The goal of osteochondral tissue engineering is to create a hard bone substitute firmly attached to a soft cartilage-like tissue in order to make an alternative for total joint replacement. Both structures will function as supportive scaffolds for osteogenic and chondrogenic cells, respectively. They eventually will replace and strengthen the damaged tissues.

The developed structures should function as biological substitutes to repair osteochondral tissues and have to demonstrate good mechanical properties during rehabilitation. Ti and Zr implants can be used to make hard bone-like substitutes due to their excellent mechanical properties, chemical resistance and biocompatibility. Recently, a powder bed additive manufacturing (AM) technology based on selective laser melting has emerged with the ability to fabricate porous implants with precise mechanical properties, topological pore architecture and patient-specific design. Other AM techniques, such as 3D printing, selective laser sintering, sheet lamination, and fused deposition modeling can also be considered.

Apart from metals, Ca-P based ceramics (hydroxyapatites, HA) and polymers (both natural and synthetic) can be used for building up the scaffolds. HA coatings are osteoinductive as they mimic the main mineral component of the bone. However, they have limited mechanical stability. Titanium has a high strength-to-weight ratio but low cell adhesive potential. Therefore, Ti scaffolds need to be modified to provide them osteogenic properties.