Research work · 2012
Bone tissue engineering: from bench to bedside
Maria Ann Woodruff, Claudia Lange, Johannes Christian Reichert, Arne Berner, Fulen Chen, Peter Fratzl, Jan‐Thorsten Schantz, Dietmar Werner Hutmacher
Materials Today
Abstract
The drive to develop bone grafts for the filling of major gaps in the skeletal structure has led to a major research thrust towards developing biomaterials for bone engineering. Unfortunately, from a clinical perspective, the promise of bone tissue engineering which was so vibrant a decade ago has so far failed to deliver the anticipated results of becoming a routine therapeutic application in reconstructive surgery. Here we describe our bench to bedside concept, the first clinical results and a detailed analysis of long-term bone regeneration studies in preclinical animal models, exploiting methods of micro- and nano analysis of biodegradable composite scaffolds.