IMPLANTS that encourage bone regrowth could one day be printed using ink-jet technology.
In the current edition of the journal Advanced Materials () a team at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, reveal how it can be done. They 鈥減rint鈥� droplets of a tricalcium phosphate suspension, layer by layer on a hydroxyapatite surface. These minerals reacts to form brushite, a calcium phosphate that hardens into a porous 3D scaffold. This slowly dissolves in the body to be replaced by real bone.
Better still, the team, led by Jake Barralet, has successfully encouraged a network of blood vessels to grow in their implants. When an implant was tested in mice, the use of a growth factor called VEGF caused extensive vascularisation.
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