3D-printed bone-replacement gel contains live bone cells

Presently, if a patient is missing a section of bone due to accident or disease, it has to be replaced with bone harvested from elsewhere in their body.

A new cell-containing gel, however, could one day be 3D printed right into the injury, where it would then harden.

Scientists at Australia's University of New South Wales-Sydney have created a calcium phosphate-based "bio-ink" gel that already contains the patient's own live bone cells. In a technique known as ceramic omnidirectional bioprinting in cell-suspensions (COBICS), that non-toxic gel is 3D-printed directly into the patient's bone deficit.

It proceeds to harden – within minutes of exposure to their bodily fluids – forming into a bone-like material consisting of mechanically interlocked bone mineral nanocrystals.

The cells within the now-solid material could then go on to reproduce, ultimately replacing it with natural living bone. Animal testing is now being planned, to see if this does indeed happen.

And while there are some other experimental bone-replacement materials that can be "pre-seeded" with cells, implants made of them typically have to be produced beforehand utilizing toxic chemicals and high-temperature furnaces. By contrast, the COBICS gel could simply be extruded straight into the bone.