3D printing of patient-specific silk fibroin/elastin implants for intervertebral disc regeneration

João B. Costa, Joana Silva-Correia, Viviana P. Ribeiro, Alain da Silva Morais, Joaquim Miguel Oliveira, Rui Luís Reis

Research output: Contribution to conferencePosterpeer-review

Abstract

Lower back pain (LBP) affects up to 80% of the population being intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration one of its main causes [1]. However, the existing treatments are focused only on pain relief [2] leading to a growing interest in the development of personalized cell-based tissue engineering (TE) approaches that address IVD substitution/regeneration. In this work, patient-specific substitutes for the outer region of the IVD (i.e. annulus fibrosus, AF) were printed using a silk fibroin/elastin ink by a rapid prototyping approach. The 3D model of AF was obtained by a reverse engineering technology that comprised a semi-automatic morphological segmentation from magnetic resonance imaging dataset of human IVD [3]. The bioprinted SF/elastin scaffolds were shown to possess structural and mechanical properties similar to the native AF and supports cell attachment and growth up to 21 days of culturing. The development of patient-specific SF/elastin implants that mimic patient AF anatomy can possibly the appearance of novel personalized treatments for IVD disorders.
Original languageEnglish
Number of pages1
Publication statusPublished - 2017
Externally publishedYes
Event2017 TERMSTEM - Porto, Portugal
Duration: 15 Nov 201717 Nov 2017

Conference

Conference2017 TERMSTEM
Country/TerritoryPortugal
CityPorto
Period15/11/1717/11/17

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