Title: Multimaterial bioresorbable scaffolds manufactured by 3D printing for bone tissue engineering
Speaker: Prof. Javier LLorca，Scientific Director of IMDEA Materials Institute，Member of the Academia Europaea
Date/Time: 2024.6.18 10:00-11:30
Location: Yiucheng Lecture Hall (500), Xu Zuyao Building
Inviter: Assoc.Prof. Jingya Wang
Biography：
Prof. Javier LLorca is scientific director and founder of the IMDEA Materials Institute, where he leads the research group on Bio/Chemo/Mechanics of Materials (https://materials.imdea.org/groups/bcmom/), and professor and head of the research group on Advanced Structural Materials and Nanomaterials at the Polytechnic University of Madrid.
A Fulbright scholar, Prof. LLorca is Fellow of the European Mechanics Society and of the Materials Research Society, member of the Academia Europaea and has held visiting positions at Brown University, Indian Institute of Science, China Central South University, Yanshan University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He has received the Leonardo Torres Quevedo National Research Award in Engineering, the Research Award from the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences, the Morris Cohen Award of TMS, the Distinguished Scientist Award of the Structural Materials Division of TMS, the Research Award from the Polytechnic University of Madrid and the Career Award from the Spanish Society of Materials.
His current research interests – within the framework of Integrated Computational Materials Engineering – are aimed at the design of advanced materials for engineering applications in transport, health care (implants) as well as energy (catalysis), so new materials can be designed, tested and optimized in silico before they are actually manufactured in the laboratory.
Abstract：
Temporary implants and scaffolds from bioresorbable materials, that are progressively degraded and absorbed in the human body and can be manufactured by 3D printing, have tremendous potential for tissue engineering applications. As opposed to permanent implants, that remain as foreign materials in the body after healing and may require second surgeries because of inflammatory reactions, bioresorbable implants disappear and only the natural tissue remains. Moreover, 3D printing technologies allow to design implants and scaffolds that are customized to the patient’s needs. However, the full potential of bioresorbable scaffolds can only be achieved if it is possible to develop materials in which the mechanical properties and degradation rates are synchronized with tissue growth. To this end, it is necessary to develop a palette of bioresorbable materials which cover a wide range of mechanical properties and degradation rates for different biomedical applications or even for different locations in the scaffold.
In this talk, strategies to design different materials manufactured by 3D printing (metals, polymers and metal/polymer composites) and/or surface modifications to tailor mechanical properties and degradation rates for bone tissue engineering are presented. They include Mg alloys as well as composites made up of a biodegradable thermoplastic matrix reinforced with Mg or Zn particles or Mg wires. In particular, it is shown how surface modification by plasma electrolytic oxidation can be used to control the degradation rate and improve cytocompatibility of porous Mg scaffolds manufactured by laser power bed fusion or of Mg fibers. Similarly, degradation rates and cytocompatibility of PLA can be modified by the addition of Mg and Zn particles, while the reinforcement of PLA with Mg wires provides a unique opportunity to manufacture multimaterial scaffolds by means filament fused filament fabrication in which the mechanical properties, degradation rate and biological performance of each region of the scaffold are optimized.