New Material for Printing Highly Accurate Replacements for Real Bones
 

New Material for Printing Highly Accurate Replacements for Real Bones
[IMG]http://www.medgadget.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/**rthwestern-bone-material.png[/IMG]

At **rthwestern University researchers created a new material that can be used as an ink in a 3D printer to create highly accurate mimics of real bones. The investigators tested it by seeding the printed material with*human stem cells and implanting it in animal models.

It consists of 90%*hydroxyapatite, a*mineral form of calcium apatite naturally found in our bones, and 10% biodegradable polymer either*polycaprolactone or poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA). Hydroxyapatite has been used in the past for medical applications, but using it exclusively results in very hard and brittle materials. By adding only a small amount of the polymer to the hydroxyapatite resulted in a much more flexible product that is still strong but doesn’t easily ***** and shatter.

The synthetic bones are highly porous at all scales, including na**, micro, and macro, allowing living cells to settle in and make a cozy home for themselves, linking together and building larger structures throughout the material. Moreover, because the printing process happens at room temperature, the new ink can integrate ***** such as antibiotics right into the final product.

Study in Science Translational Medicine: Hyperelastic “bone”: A highly versatile, growth factor–free, osteoregenerative, scalable, and surgically friendly biomaterial…

Via:***rthwestern University…

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