Recently, the Root and Tuber Crops Food Science and Technology Innovation Team of IFST-CAAS reviewed the research progress in 3D printed biobased and biodegradable polyester/ceramic composite materials in the field of bone tissue engineering. This work was published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (JCR Q1, IF=8.3). The GSCAAS-LGg program PhD student Shunshun Zhu is the first author, while Prof. Hongnan Sun and Prof. Taihua Mu are the corresponding authors. This study was funded by the Science and Technology Innovation Project of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS-ASTIP-202X-IFST).

Severe bone defects caused by trauma, infection, or tumors often require surgical implantation of exogenous bone grafts to achieve complete skeletal healing. However, traditional bone grafts present various risks during application. In recent years, biobased bone tissue engineering scaffold materials have emerged as one of the most promising materials for bone repair due to their excellent properties. Among them, biobased and biodegradable polyesters have attracted significant attention for their good biocompatibility and controllable biodegradability, while ceramics, owing to their inorganic composition being highly similar to human bone, have become important raw materials for bone reconstruction. These two types of materials exhibit great potential for applications in the field of tissue engineering.

This article systematically reviewed the current biobased and biodegradable polyester and ceramic materials used in bone tissue engineering, detailing their physiochemical properties, as well as their application advantages and disadvantages. It also provided an overview of 3D printed biobased and biodegradable polyester/ceramic bone scaffolds, focusing on their structural parameters, mechanical properties, degradation behavior, and biological functionality, while proposing multiple strategies to improve scaffold performance. Furthermore, the article discussed the limitations of these composite materials in actual clinical applications and outlines future development directions.

This research offered new insights into the development of 3D printed biobased and biodegradable polyester/ceramic bone scaffolds and provided critical guidance for expanding the clinical application of bone scaffolds in bone defect repair.

Link: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.4c15719

Graphical abstract

Various biobased and biodegradable polyester structures