Tissue engineering for bone augmentation in maxillofacial surgery
1st Supervisor: Dr Sanjukta Deb
2nd Supervisor: Professor Lucy Di Silvio
Description of project
Tissue engineering and regenerative medicine is an evolving interdisciplinary field that integrates aspects of engineering, chemistry, biology and medicine. Tissue engineering of bone is being widely researched but yet to reach a stage where the process is clinically viable. Bone augmentation is often required in maxillofacial surgery and several bone grafting techniques are currently employed such as autologous bone grafts, bone substitutes, however each of the procedures are associated with high rates of failure due to infection, exposure of graft in the oral cavity and instability of materials. Consequently there is a need to develop alternative routes for bone augmentation in the maxillofacial region. More recently, attention is being focussed on injectable scaffolds that may be carriers of stem cells with appropriate growth factors mainly because it can be used in complex geometries and inserted with minimal incision.
In this project, we propose to focus on the development of injectable composites based on biological polymers and bioactive glasses. The functional scaffolds will be developed using bioreactors that couple chemical, biological and mechanical signals with non-invasive monitoring systems for functional 3D tissue growth or rapid expansion of functional stem cells is vital for translational research.
Duration of project: 3 year PhD
Contact for further information
Dr Sanjukta Deb
sanjukta.deb@kcl.ac.uk
Research Topic: Biomaterials, Tissue Engineering and Imaging
Back to the Research Projects main page.