Novel foam structures for personalized bone replacement materials

The objective of the presented work is to develop novel porous, near-net shaped foam structures for personalized bone replacement materials allowing the ingrowth and differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs). The so-called freeze-foaming process offers the possibility to achieve mainly open porous and interconnected sponge-like structures without any CO2-producing pore formers or similar volatile whole PU-scaffolds. Furthermore, the near-net shaping feasibility of these Freeze Foams allows to foam for instance, the inner contours of additive manufactured (AM) ceramic scaffolds which are then combined in a co-sintering step to a single personalized, complex 3D-structure. As results, ceramic biomaterials, in this case hydroxyapatite (HAp) and/or zirconia (ZrO2), probably allow the osteogenic differentiation of hMSCs on the detection of alkaline phosphatase and collagene-1 on the one hand. Foamed as a hybrid mixture on the other hand, achieved ZrO2/HAp composites exhibit significantly increased compressive strength whilst biocompatibility is retained. Within an oral presentation the author wants to show the potential of this novel bone replacement structures as possible next generation bioceramics/-composites used as personalized implants which allow an adaption according to the needs of customers.