Shaping the future of bone regeneration: aerogels and hybrid materials
|Autografts are still the go-to solution to treat bone damages, even if they come with significant drawbacks, including complications from additional surgeries and donor site morbidity. Promising alternatives include synthetic, biocompatible materials that can mimic the bone natural structure. In particular, aerogels are ultra-light, highly porous materials, which structure can be fine-tuned, even combining with synthetic polymers (such as polyvinyl alcohol), PVA, a material already used in other biomedical applications, and known to enhance the bioactivity of bone scaffolds when integrated with borosilicate glasses.
Dr. Zoltán Balogh, Dr. Zoltán Dudás, Dr. József Kalmár and colleagues of the University of Debrecen and the Budapest Neutron Centre (HUN-REN Centre of Energy Research) developed borosilicate gels hybridized with PVA of different molecular weights; moreover, incorporating various calcium sources and hydroxyapatite, they developed nanostructured, open-porous aerogels that could improve bone tissue regeneration. The hybridized aerogels have been fully characterised, in terms of both nanostructure and chemical composition, using different analytical instruments, including solid state Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectrometer and Small Angle Neutron Scattering Diffractometer available at the CERIC Slovenian and Hungarian Partner Facility, respectively. Then, researchers tested the viability and proliferation of osteosarcoma cells and mesenchymal stem cells in the presence of these aerogel particles using time-lapse video microscopy.
The results showed that the newly developed PVA hybridized aerogels provide a promising environment for bone-forming cells, promoting both cell attachment and growth, and that they can then be good candidates for bone regeneration applications.
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