Build-a Bone

A hard blow to the face or skull can cause damage to the bone, often difficult to repair due to the multiple cell types that contribute to the healing process and the usually irregular shape of the defect. This is where collagen scaffolds come in. Engineered to stimulate the formation of new connective tissue, the scaffolds are made from components found in bone such as calcium, phosphate ions and sugar compounds. To improve their collagen scaffold, researchers investigated how the use of different sugar compounds in their scaffold affected processes involved in bone regeneration. This included stem cell activity, the growth of immune cells and the growth of blood vessels. The latter is often overlooked when optimising scaffolds. Pictured is a coloured electron microscope image of the group’s scaffold, complete with thread-like collagen fibres.

Written by Katy Pallister

Katy Pallister

Writer

Katy is a freelance science educator, presenter, writer and producer based in London. She is a former Engagement and Events Officer at the MRC LMS.

• Image from work by Marley J.Dewey and Vasiliki Kolliopoulos, and colleagues
• Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA
• Image copyright held by the original authors
• Published in Materialia, August 2021