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Description
An Osteochondral defect (OCD) refers to an area of local damage in the articular cartilage and in the underlying subchondral bone (SB). Trauma related to an injury, or a long-term chronic disease are the main causes of this defect. Tissue engineering osteochondral scaffolds (OCSs) is a method used for the treatment of OCD. This method could achieve the regeneration of the damaged tissue using scaffolds and cells. One key research gap is to solve the complexity of manufacturing a multiphasic graded OCS, involving different layers of articular cartilage, cartilage-bone interface, and subchondral bone with no interface which can avoid the delamination between layers, helping to achieve the specific mechanical properties of these tissues. The manufacturing process used is 3D printing extrusion using the 3D discovery printer (RegenHU) which allows multi-material deposition, in this project two different materials are being used for printing different phases in a single step: gelatin methacrylate (GelMA), and polycaprolactone (PCL). These materials are selected as the best candidates for the biofabrication of OCSs, which are evaluated in terms of swelling and degradation. One of the most promising approaches relies on complex design to fulfil the mechanical properties of the osteochondral tissue, such as stress and strain, validated by finite element analysis (FEA) of the scaffold design. The Young’s modulus of the PCL/GelMA scaffold verged to the osteochondral native tissue. Although these results demonstrate the potential of the design related with the mechanical properties of the OCS, improvements require more complex design and future studies will focus on their optimisation, alongside further mechanical, swelling and degradation tests of the scaffold and cell culture evaluations of the OCS.
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