Enhancing bioactivity of titania scaffolds for bone regeneration applications
Investigator: Abirami Sengottuvelan (Doktorandin)
Ulrich-Schalk-Straße 3
91056 Erlangen
Raum 01.111
Tel.: +49 (0)9131 85-69606
email: abirami.sengottuvelan@fau.de
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. –Ing. habil. Aldo R. Boccaccini
Three dimensional titanium dioxide (TiO2) (titania) scaffolds are receiving attention for the reconstruction of damaged bone tissue. Though these scaffolds show suitable mechanical properties, their bioactivity is significantly lower than that of bioactive glass scaffolds. The main aim of this project is to improve the bioactivity of TiO2 scaffolds by developing different coating technologies. Titania scaffolds of suitable porosity and pore interconnectivity can be produced via foam replication technique [1]. Fabricated scaffolds are coated with polymer/bioactive glass, ALP enzyme [2], or with mesoporous bioactive glass particles to enhance their bioactive behaviour. Different types of characterization techniques such as XRD, SEM/EDS, TEM are carried out to analyse the fabricated samples. In addition, in vitro studies are being carried out to compare the effectiveness of the different coating strategies to achieve bioactive behaviour.
[1] S. Novak, J. Druce, Q.-Z. Chen, A.R. Boccaccini, TiO2 foams with poly-(d,l-lactic acid) (PDLLA) and PDLLA/Bioglass® coatings for bone tissue engineering scaffolds, J. Mater. Sci. 44 (2009) 1442–1448.
[2] A. Sengottuvelan, P. Balasubramanian, J. Will, A. R. Boccaccini, Bioactivation of titanium dioxide scaffolds by ALP-functionalization. Bioact. Mater. 2 (2017) 108-115.
