Project description
A one-stop shop for the engineering and 3D printing of biocompatible tissue scaffolds
Tissue engineering and tissue regeneration are strongly interrelated topics of research, and both have come a long way. Much as teaching a person to fish is preferable to giving them a fish, an implant that encourages regeneration and a life beyond itself is key to the sustainability and long-term impact of the engineered tissue. The EU-funded INKplant project will develop an advanced 'toolbox' of technologies to enable 3D printing of tailor-made, biocompatible scaffolds that will facilitate tissue regeneration for diverse types of human tissue. The tools will include a portfolio of materials, 3D printing technologies, simulation and experimental evaluation.
Objective
Improving the life quality of Europe’s increasingly elderly population is one of the most pressing challenges our society faces today. The need to treat age-related degenerative changes in e.g. articular joints or dental implants will boost the market opportunities for tissue regeneration products like biological scaffolds. State of the art 3D printing technologies can provide biocompatible implants with the right macroscopic shape to fit a patient-specific tissue defect. However, for a real functionality, there is a need for new biomaterials, technologies and processes that additionally allow the fabrication of a scaffold microstructure that induces tissue-specific regeneration. It is not possible to address the complexity in structure and properties of human tissues with a single material or fabrication technique. Besides, there are many types of tissue in the human body, each with their own internal structures and functions. INKplant vision is the fusion/combination of different biomaterials (6 different inks), high-resolution, high throughput additive manufacturing technologies already proved for industrial processes (ceramic sterolithography and 3D multimaterial inkjet printing), and advanced simulation and biological evaluation, to bring a new concept for the design and fabrication of biomimetic scaffolds (3D printed patient specific resorbable cell-free implants) which can address the complexity of the different tissue in the human body, demonstrated for 2 Use Cases. For a successful future translation, INKplant will consider all the relevant clinical adoption criteria already at the beginning of the development process. To address INKplant challenging objective the consortium includes the best expertise from the main areas of relevance to the project: biomaterials, 3D printing technology, tissue engineering, regulatory bodies and social humanities.
Fields of science
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicineodontologydental implantology
- medical and health sciencesmedical biotechnologytissue engineering
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringmanufacturing engineeringadditive manufacturing
- engineering and technologyindustrial biotechnologybiomaterials
- medical and health sciencesmedical biotechnologyimplants
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinator
4407 STEYR GLEINK
Austria