Bone related cell-stimulating scaffold materials and a 3D cellular construct for hard tissue regeneration

The present article summarizes recently developed calcium phosphatebased scaffold materials that are capable of stimulating various cells involved in hard tissue formation as well as a method using newly developed cell culture devices to generate three dimensional (3D) cellular constructs. Synthetic octacalcium phosphate stimulates cellular functions of several cell types, including osteoblasts, chondrocytes, and pulp cells. The culture device promotes the easy assembly of chondrocytes in a 3D cellular construct. The scaffold materials, cellular constructs, and composite presented here are good candidates as implantable materials for the regeneration of hard tissue in bone defects depending on the severity of the tissue loss.