Speaker
Description
Our musculoskeletal system has a limited capacity for repair. This has led to increased interest in the development of tissue engineering and biofabrication strategies for the regeneration of musculoskeletal tissues such as bone, ligament, tendon, meniscus and articular cartilage. This invited talk will demonstrate how different musculoskeletal tissues, specifically cartilage, bone and osteochondral defects, can be engineered or repaired using emerging biofabrication and 3D bioprinting strategies. Increasingly complex strategies will be introduced, beginning with relatively simple examples where emerging additive manufacturing platforms are used to produce cell-free biomaterials capable of directing tissue regeneration in vivo, to more complex approaches where microtissues are used as biological building blocks to engineer osteochondral grafts for biological joint resurfacing. Finally, a novel bioprinting platform will be described capable of engineering anisotropic musculoskeletal tissues by spatially patterning microtissues into temporally adapting support baths.
