Key words: bone regeneration, 3D printing, 3D scaffolds, nanocomposites, human mesenchymal stem cells

"Tracing fast roads towards bone regeneration: Strategies to augment the bioactivity of additive manufactured scaffolds"

Current clinical strategies to treat large bone size defects, mainly based on autografts, are inefficient and have limitations, such as donor site morbidity, restricted availability, high costs and lack of structural properties. For this reason, the orthopedic field is seeking innovative and effective solutions to regenerate bone in such scenarios. This is being done with the help of tissue engineering, which makes use of scaffolds to generate an environment mimicking the native bone tissue and boost its regeneration in large defects. 3D printing has stood out as an ideal technique to fabricate such scaffolds, as they are patient personalized, highly porous, biodegradable and mechanically robust. This thesis contributed to the field by investigating different polymer-nanoparticle composite materials to fabricate 3D printed scaffolds for bone tissue regeneration. These include hydroxyapatite, to mimic the composition of bone, nanoparticles loaded with antibiotics, to prevent bone infections, and reduced graphene oxide, to render the scaffold electrically conductive and stimulate bone formation. In addition, two methodologies were investigated, one of them based on plasma surface modification, to enhance cell attachment to the scaffolds to optimize in vitro experimentation and in vivo outcomes.

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