3D perfusion bioreactor for optimising osteostimulatory scaffolds for conditioning of autologous cells for enhanced bone grafting

通过开发新的体外筛选和细胞调理技术，促进新的肌肉骨骼组织工程方法。在老年患者或骨生物学受损患者中实现可靠的骨愈合和骨折修复仍然是临床医生面临的挑战。骨折修复不良对患者康复率和持续生活质量的负面影响，也给卫生和社会保健系统带来了沉重的经济负担。为了应对这一挑战，全球已经开发了许多不同的人工骨移植替代品（BGS）材料。这些合成材料的目的是复制自体移植物（使用取自患者的骨头）所取得的成功，但没有从供体部位取出自体移植物相关的临床并发症。虽然一些合成BGS材料已被证明在临床上是成功的，但人们对预植入骨科植骨疗法的兴趣越来越大，以进一步提高骨再生的速度和质量。继QMUL团队参与Actifuse和Inductigraft合成BGS材料的开发之后，该学生将以研究合成BGS对骨再生能力的调节为基础，之前主要集中在使用灌注生物反应器系统来研究人类间充质干细胞对合成BGS结构特征的敏感性。这项研究的目的是进一步开发体外3D灌注生物反应器平台，作为体内一级筛选的替代方案，并优化移植物结构，以特异性地传递和增强自体细胞的成骨潜力。

Promote novel musculoskeletal tissue engineering approaches by developing new in vitro screening and cell conditioning technologies. Achieving reliable bone healing and fracture repair in older patients or patients with compromised bone biology continues to challenge clinicians. The negative impact on patient recovery rates and ongoing quality of life, resulting from poor fracture repair, also presents health and social care systems with a significant financial burden. In response to this challenge a number of different synthetic bone graft substitute (BGS) materials have been developed globally. These synthetics aim to replicate the success achieved by auto-grafting (which uses bone taken from the patient), but without the clinical complications associated with retrieving the auto-graft from the donor site. While some synthetic BGS materials have proven to be clinically successful, there is increasing interest in pre-seeded orthobiologic bone grafting therapies to further boost the rate and quality of bone regeneration.Following the QMUL groups involvement in the development of Actifuse and Inductigraft synthetic BGS materials this studentship will build on investigations into the regulation of bone regeneration capacity by synthetic BGS, previously centred around using a perfusion based bioreactor system to investigate human mesenchymal stem cell sensitivity to the structural characteristics of synthetic BGS.The aims of this studentship are to develop further the in vitro 3D perfusion bioreactor platform for use as an alternative to first level in vivo screening, and to optimise graft structures specifically to deliver and enhance the osteogenic potential of autologous cells.