Customized Load-Bearing Scaffolds Using Multiscale Porosity and Multi-Material Domains

该奖项是根据2009年《美国复苏和再投资法案》(公法111-5)提供资金的。该奖项的研究目标是开发制造技术，使其能够制造用于骨缺损修复的多材料、近净形状的组织工程支架。这将使一类新的功能分级支架成为可能，并将导致快速原型制造和骨组织工程研究的当前技术水平的进步。该技术将利用迭代学习控制来学习机器人制造任务的轨迹，使用基于视觉的系统。学习到的函数将被存储为库，并用于通过对各个函数的组合进行排序来构建任意支架。这项技术将能够在单个支架中制造具有6-12种大孔和微孔大小和分数的12种组合的新型支架，这将允许在确定导致最快、最完整的骨愈合的孔组合方面取得前所未有的进展。这种方法只需要花费昂贵的体内实验的一小部分，并将在这个过程中获得明显更多的信息。如果成功，这项研究将解决我们社会中一个基本的和不断增长的健康需求，即需要更有效的骨缺损修复选择。这项研究还将有助于工程支架的制造，以及对大孔和微孔在骨生长中的作用的基本理解。制造和生物材料的各个方面将被纳入现有的课程，目标是让每个机械工程专业的学生熟悉组织支架作为设计和制造的挑战，让每个生物工程专业的学生熟悉制造作为组织工程的一个重要方面。所学到的经验教训将被打包，通过课程、夏令营和本科生研究项目等教育渠道传播，以及通过每年吸引数千名参观者到校园的工程开放日。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). The research objective of this award is to develop manufacturing technology enabling the fabrication of multi-material, near net-shape tissue engineering scaffolds for bone defect repair. This will enable a new class of functionally graded scaffolds and will result in advances in the current state of the art for both rapid prototype manufacturing and bone tissue engineering research. The technology will make use of Iterative Learning Control to learn trajectories for robotic manufacturing tasks using a vision-based system. Learned functions will be stored as a library and used for constructing any arbitrary scaffold by sequencing combinations of the individual functions. The technology will enable the fabrication of novel scaffolds with 6-12 twelve combinations of macropore and micropore size and fraction in a single scaffold, which will allow for unprecedented progress in determining pore combinations that result in the fastest, most complete bone healing. The approach will require a fraction of the number of costly in vivo experiments and will obtain significantly more information in the process. If successful, the research will address a basic and growing health need in our society, namely the need for more effective options for bone defect repair. The research will also contribute to manufacture of engineered scaffolds as well as to the fundamental understanding of the role of macro and microporosities on bone ingrowth. Aspects of manufacturing and biological materials will be incorporated into the existing curriculum with the goal of making every mechanical engineering student familiar with tissue scaffolds as a design and manufacturing challenge and every bioengineering student familiar with manufacturing as an important aspect of tissue engineering. The lessons learned will be packaged for dissemination through educational channels like courses, summer camps, and undergraduate research projects, as well as through Engineering Open House, which draws thousands of visitors to campus annually.