Sacrificial templated grafts to encourage bone healing through mechanotransduction

University Of Texas San Antonio, San Antonio TX

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Abstract

Sacrificial Templated Grafts to Encourage Bone Healing Through Mechanotransduction Project Summary Loss of large volumes of bone tissue often occurs as a result of traumatic injuries or cancerous resection. Such injuries, especially in the head, jaws, and neck are challenging to surgeons and the long- and short-term complications as well as the quality of life for these patients are often affected due to alteration in facial aesthetics and features, speech, mastication, and breathing. To overcome these complications, current clinical alternatives include grafting of bone with associated vascular bundles obtained from a secondary site. All these treatments require multiple clinical interventions and often result in increased pain or donor site morbidity for the patients. In this study, single-surgical step synthetic graft alternatives with controlled mechano-modulation through compliance changes within the scaffold as well as a concerted delivery of cell migration factors to enhance bone regeneration will be developed. As such, the 2 aims for this project are 1) to develop a chemoattractant incorporated bone graft substitute with engineered degradation zones while retaining its mechanical integrity for functional stabilization, and 2) to assess controlled temporal degradation under physiologically relevant conditions in vitro and mechanisms of osteogenic and angiogenic signaling through mechanotransduction and Ca2+ coupled pathways. Data collected from the in vitro and in vivo studies will guide the development of this novel graft and provide an established platform to study the effects of local micromechanical factors and release of recruitment factors to promote fracture healing and bone regeneration without need for extensive bone fixation instrumentation.