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Each year, about 2.2 million bone-grafting procedures are performed worldwide, the gold standard of care being autografting, which uses the patient's own bone for tooth implantation and to repair and reconstruct parts of the mouth, face and skull.

Given drawbacks to autografting that include the need for additional surgery, longer recovery time, complication risks and the availability of larger amounts of bone, a team of researchers from the University of Michigan School of Dentistry are succeeding in their efforts to build a better bone graft in the lab.

Having already created a technology that makes bone scaffolds with collagen-like nanostructures, micrometer-sized pores and natural shapes, the researchers have hit on an "exciting improvement" that regenerates bone by improving cell-matrix interactions, said Peter Ma, professor of dentistry.

The latest discovery, which is especially beneficial for patients needing repairs involving larger amounts of bone, grew out of a collaboration between the Ma Lab and Franceschi Lab. The team applied for U.S. and international patents of peptide-containing copolymers, nanofiber and implantable and injectable 3D scaffolds for bone, and other related tissue regeneration that can bring many benefits.

"Having a predictable source of materials to regenerate the bone means much more reliable procedures," Ma said. "What is most important is that we can regenerate tissues without introducing exogenous cells, which would potentially complicate the therapies by triggering immune response. The exciting outcome is that our new approach can regenerate about eight times more bone than a scaffold without the special peptides on nanofibers."

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