Processing and Characterization of Apatite-Wollastonite Porous Scaffolds for Bone Tissue Engineering

There is a clinical and socio-economic need to produce synthetic alternatives to autologous or allogenic bone grafts. Bioactive glasses and glass-ceramics offer great potential in this area. The aims of this study were to optimise production of apatite-wollastonite (A-W) glassceramic scaffolds produced by selective laser sintering, in terms of their physical and biological properties and to look at how human Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) responded to these 3-D scaffolds in vitro. An indirect selective laser sintering process successfully produced strong, porous scaffolds. Depending upon particle size(s) and infiltration of the porous structure, flexural strengths between 35 MPa and 100 MPa were obtained. Following static seeding of A-W scaffolds with MSCs, fluoresecent actin and nuclei staining, as observed by confocal microscopy, showed that these scaffolds supported the adherence of human MSC’s at time periods of up to 21 days. As such these seeded scaffolds show great potential for use in bone regenerative medicine.