Use of a biomimetic strategy to engineer bone

Abstract: Engineering trabecular-like, three-dimensional bone tissue throughout biodegradable polymer scaffolds is a significant challenge. Using a novel processing technique, we have created a biodegradable scaffold with geometry similar to that of trabecular bone. When seeded with bone-marrow cells, new bone tissue, the geometry of which re-flected that of the scaffold, was evident throughout the scaffold volume and to a depth of 10 mm. Preseeded scaf-folds implanted in non-healing rabbit segmental bone de-fects allowed new functional bone formation and bony union to be achieved throughout the defects within 8 weeks. This marks the first report of successful three-dimensional bone-tissue engineering repair using autologous marrow cells without the use of supplementary growth factors. We attribute our success to the novel scaffold morphology