A novel method for biomaterial scaffold internal architecture design to match bone elastic properties with desired porosity

Abstract

An often-proposed tissue engineering design hypothesis is that the scaffold should provide a biomimetic mechanical environment for initial function and appropriate remodeling of regenerating tissue while concurrently providing sufficient porosity for cell migration and cell/gene delivery. To provide a systematic study of this hypothesis, the ability to precisely design and manufacture biomaterial scaffolds is needed. Traditional methods for scaffold design and fabrication cannot provide the control over scaffold architecture design to achieve specified properties within fixed limits on porosity. The purpose of this paper was to develop a general design optimization scheme for 3D internal scaffold architecture to match desired elastic properties and porosity simultaneously, by introducing the homogenization-based topology optimization algorithm (also known as general layout optimization). With an initial target for bone tissue engineering, we demonstrate that the method can produce highly porous structures that match human trabecular bone anisotropic stiffness using accepted biomaterials. In addition, we show that anisotropic bone stiffness may be matched with scaffolds of widely different porosity. Finally, we also demonstrate that prototypes of the designed structures can be fabricated using solid free-form fabrication (SFF) techniques.