Abstract

Additive Manufacturing of 3D Bone Tissue Model

Jungwoo Lee, Assistant Professor, University of Massachusetts-Amherst

Creating functional bone tissue analogs outside of the body represents a unique opportunity to understand bone biology better. Various biomaterials and engineering strategies have been developed, but a realistic bone tissue model that reproduces both surface and subsurface cellular and extracellular matrix complexity remain unsuccessful. Mature bone consists of multiple lamellar bones interfaced with osteocytes that are primary mechanosensory cells. In this presentation, I will introduce a new approach to create bone tissue replica by additive manufacturing of the lamellar structure of bone. We first developed a process to generate a thin section of demineralized compact bone that supports the aligned adhesion of osteoblasts and structural mineral deposition. We then exploited tissue-engineering strategies to induce osteoblast-to-osteocyte differentiation via stacking multiple layers of osteoblasts pre-seeded demineralized bone paper and subsequently applying cyclic mechanical compression under hypoxic milieu. Our additive manufacturing of bone tissue demonstrated precise control of the thickness and both surface and subsurface cellular complexity. We envision that the presented additive manufacturing bone tissue models is expected to greatly advance bioengineering trabecular bone for basic and applied researches.