Cartilage

Articular cartilage injuries affect approximately 900,000 people worldwide per year, at a cost of $3.2 billion. Many methods for repairing these injuries have been proposed, however the repair tissue often has reduced mechanical properties compared to articular cartilage. Research within our group has focused on the fabrication of polymer materials into specialised scaffold morphologies. It is proposed that controlling the spatial arrangement of chondrocytes within scaffolds will improve seeding of these cells into the scaffold, the supply of nutrients to the growing tissue and the properties of the subsequent engineered tissue.

Bone

Bone defects can occur during surgery, as a result of trauma, or from abnormal development. Although bone tissue can self-repair, there are many cases where the damage is too severe for adequate self-healing. There is therefore a clinical need for synthetic scaffolds that promote bone regeneration. However, a common problem encountered when using scaffolds in tissue engineering is the rapid formation of tissue on the outer edge of the scaffold whilst the tissue in the centre becomes necrotic. The foundation for this programme of research has been the fabrication of ceramic materials into specialised scaffold morphologies to improve nutrient and bone cell transfer to the scaffold centre for enhanced tissue formation.