BAMOS · Biomaterials and Additive Manufacturing: Osteochondral Scaffold innovation applied to osteoarthritis

Biomaterials and Additive Manufacturing: Osteochondral Scaffold innovation applied to osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis (OA) is one of the most prevalent chronic conditions as identified in Bone & Joint Decade. This degenerative joint disease affects around 0.4 billion people’s life, with patients in Europe accounting for up to 30%. The figure is set to increase with the ageing problem. Patients with OA often suffer pain, loss of mobility and go on to require an end stage total joint replacement. This will happen when the loss of quality of cartilage and bone at the joint interface has significantly reduced the quality of life of the patient, and non-surgical treatments are no longer effective. The project Biomaterials and Additive Manufacturing: Osteochondral Scaffold (BAMOS) innovation applied to osteoarthritis particularly addressed the challenges in OA treatment by providing novel cost-effective osteochondral scaffold technology for early intervention of OA to delay or avoid joint replacement operations. The developments of this project have the potential to relieve pain in patients with OA improving their quality of life by keeping people active. It fits with the scope of EU Societal Challenges to encourage the provision of improved clinical care for patients in the field of healthcare, especially for elderly patients. In the course of researching this new treatment for mid- to late-stage OA, BAMOS established and embed a new collaboration between seven internationally leading research organisations (from Europe and China). BAMOS developed new materials and additive manufacturing technologies for the fabrication of custom-tailored osteochondral scaffolds that could bridge the gap between small osteochondral defect treatment and joint replacement. The new technologies underwent full pre-clinical evaluation so the scaffolds could enter clinical trial after the project. This project brought together international leading research centres with wide-ranging complementary research expertise in the context of a collaborative scheme of research exchange and networking to: • Define clinical specifications of the osteochondral scaffolds and the clinical delivery procedures to be used. • Develop new osteochondral scaffold biomaterials in order to provide appropriate mechanical environment for support bone and cartilage formation simultaneously. Novel biopolymeric composites, processed by additive manufacturing, as well as coating procedures on titanium and polymeric scaffolds were also developed, characterized and tested. • Develop innovative additive manufacturing techniques to produce patient-tailored osteochondral scaffold for large osteochondral defect repairs. • Assess the osteochondral scaffolds in both in vitro disease relevant model and in vivo clinical animal model. • Train early-stage researchers in the context of collaborative research, equip them with the advanced knowledge and expertise to tackle grand societal healthcare challenges and enable them to build the world class scientific research profile.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union