Browsing by Author "Chua, C. K."
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- Biomanufacturing for tissue engineering: Present and future trendsPublication . Bartolo, Paulo; Chua, C. K.; Almeida, Henrique de Amorim; Chou, S. M.; Lim, A. S. C.Tissue engineering, often referred to as regenerative medicine and reparative medicine, is an interdisciplinary field that necessitates the combined effort of cell biologists, engineers, material scientists, mathematicians, geneticists, and clinicians toward the development of biological substitutes that restore, maintain, or improve tissue function. It has emerged as a rapidly expanding approach to address the organ shortage problem and comprises tissue regeneration and organ substitution. Cells placed on/or within constructs is the most common strategy in tissue engineering. Successful cell seeding depends on fast attachment of cell to scaffolds, high cell survival and uniform cell distribution. The seeding time is strongly dependent on the scaffold material and architecture. Scaffolds provide an initial biochemical substrate for the novel tissue until cells can produce their own extra-cellular matrix (ECM). Thus scaffolds not only define the 3D space for the formation of new tissues, but also serve to provide tissues with appropriate functions. These scaffolds are often critical, both in vivo (within the body) or in vitro (outside the body) mimicking in vivo conditions. Additive fabrication processes represent a new group of non-conventional fabrication techniques recently introduced in the biomedical engineering field. In tissue engineering, additive fabrication processes have been used to produce scaffolds with customised external shape and predefined internal morphology, allowing good control of pore size and pore distribution. This article provides a comprehensive state-of-the-art review of the application of biomanufacturing additive processes in the field of tissue engineering. New and moving trends in biomanufacturing technologies and the concept of direct cell-printing technologies are also discussed.
- EditorialPublication . Bartolo, Paulo; Chua, C. K.We end the year 2009, our fourth year of existence, with three state-of-the-art papers and two technical papers. In the first formal paper, Liebschner describes current efforts in identifying mechano-biological principles that are believed to guide tissue formation based on biomechanical loading. The goal of the research is to discuss a reverse engineering solution in a strategy that starts with the final product, in this case, a human trabecular bone tissue, and determines the required scaffold micro-architecture and features in order to achieve that goal. Computer models of dissected human trabecular bone samples are generated, their micro-mechanical environment analysed and results used as design goals. In the second paper, Pouzada proposes hybrid moulds as a case of integration of alternative materials and rapid prototyping for tooling. This work reviews some of the outcomes of research activity on specific issues of manufacturing and utilisation of these tools. Most of the results refer to moulding blocks produced in epoxy composites that were manufactured using the vacuum casting technique. Some references are also made to rapid tooling techniques based on laser sintering. Biomanufacturing in tissue engineering is the topic of review by Bartolo et al. In recent years, the use of rapid prototyping techniques in the fabrication of tissue engineering scaffolds has generated a lot of interest. This paper presents a state-of-the-art review of all such research activities and attempts to give a crystal ball forecast of the future trends in this growing field.