Current Approaches to Bone Tissue Engineering: The Interface between Biology and Engineering

Abstract

The successful regeneration of bone tissue to replace areas of bone loss in large defects or at load-bearing sites remains a significant clinical challenge. Over the past few decades, major progress is achieved in the field of bone tissue engineering to provide alternative therapies, particularly through approaches that are at the interface of biology and engineering. To satisfy the diverse regenerative requirements of bone tissue, the field moves toward highly integrated approaches incorporating the knowledge and techniques from multiple disciplines, and typically involves the use of biomaterials as an essential element for supporting or inducing bone regeneration. This review summarizes the types of approaches currently used in bone tissue engineering, beginning with those primarily based on biology or engineering, and moving into integrated approaches in the areas of biomaterial developments, biomimetic design, and scalable methods for treating large or load-bearing bone defects, while highlighting potential areas for collaboration and providing an outlook on future developments.

Bone Tissue Engineering via Carbon‐Based Nanomaterials

“…In an effort to look for alternative therapies to treat bone defects and related diseases, BTE has received significant attention in the past few decades. [15][16][17] Unlike bone grafts, which require the direct transfer of a piece of ready whole bone (level 7, Figure 1) to treat bone defects; BTE is aimed to generate the nano, micro, and macro structures of bone from scratch by promoting the formation and proliferation of osteoblasts and osteocytes from osteogenic cells, and with the newly formed bone to fill the space of the bone defects to restore the bone functions. Thus, it is essential for BTE to design and develop 3D scaffolds that mimic the extracellular matrix in real bone tissues, which could provide enough mechanical support and proper biological stimuli to aid the formation of new bones.…”

Mesenchymal stem cells and biologic factors leading to bone formation

“…As such, they provide a source of progenitor cells that replace the lost or damaged resident cells allowing for regeneration of damaged tissues. Thus, stem cell‐based regenerative technologies rely on the input from a large number of scientific fields including nanotechnology, three‐dimensional bioprinting, bioengineering, cell biology, molecular biology, gene manipulation and good manufacturing processes (Li, Ebied, Xu, & Zreiqat, ; Oryan, Kamali, Moshiri, & Baghaban Eslaminejad, ).…”

“…Thus, understanding the interface between biology and engineering is central to achieving acceptable regenerative outcomes (Li et al., ). Accordingly, new bone formation and regeneration can only be achieved by combining our understanding of cell biology, growth and differentiation factors and bioengineering principles and not pursuing these processes in isolation.…”

Three‐Dimensional Osteosarcoma Models for Advancing Drug Discovery and Development

“…This allow researchers to find out the most suitable biomaterial that reflects the uniqueness of each tissue and pathology in a 3D model. [46,47] However, its inherent brittleness and decline of mechanical properties due to inappropriate resorption rates are limitations faced in bone grafts. Its mechanical properties vary from cancerous (2-20 MPa) to cortical (100-200 MPa) bone depending on the interconnected porosity (30-90% in cancerous bone and 10-30% in cortical bone) formed by the main organic and inorganic matrix components, collagen and hydroxycarbonate apatite.…”

“…Its mechanical properties vary from cancerous (2-20 MPa) to cortical (100-200 MPa) bone depending on the interconnected porosity (30-90% in cancerous bone and 10-30% in cortical bone) formed by the main organic and inorganic matrix components, collagen and hydroxycarbonate apatite. [47,48] Further improvements at structural level have been achieved through the implementation of the 3D printing technology, which allow the fabrication of hierarchical structures that closely mimic tissue structure. [45] The traditional metallic and bioceramic materials have been extensively used for medical implants for stiff tissues, like bone.…”