Bioceramic scaffolds: where materials science meets life – Part I

Tissue engineering is a new and highly multidisciplinary field. The main objective is to realize “living alternatives” for harvested tissues to be employed in reconstructive surgery. A key issue for tissue engineering is the design of scaffolds, i.e. artificial temporary structures acting as extracellular matrices to support the tissue regrowth. After a brief introduction on biomaterials, the main properties of scaffolds are reviewed, with a particular emphasis on scaffolds for bone tissue engineering, which can be used whenever a skeletal defect occurs because of trauma, diseases or degenerative pathologies. Bioceramic scaffolds have the great advantage to interact with bone tissue by forming a direct bond. Moreover, they can resorb in a predictable way, at the same rate as the bone tissue is repaired. The recent development of a new generation of scaffolds, based on the highly bioactive Bioglass®, is addressed. The realization of these structures is then explored discussing the widely used sponge replication and burning out techniques.