New international project to improve large bone regeneration
QUT Distinguished Professor Dietmar W Hutmacher is set to receive funding for a $762,318 project as part of the Queensland-Bavaria Collaborative Research Program, Development Grants.
The project, known as "Convergence of composite material manufacturing and patient-specific implant design (CocoManuFact)", aims to establish an advanced design and manufacturing workflow for 3D printing patient-specific, biodegradable, composite scaffolds for large bone regeneration.
Professor Hutmacher, from the QUT School of Mechanical, Medical, and Process Engineering, explained the project aimed to establish a comprehensive, clinically relevant and state-of-the-art design and manufacturing workflow for 3D printing of patient-specific biodegradable composite scaffolds for bone regeneration.
“Scaffold-guided bone regeneration addresses treatment of large volume bone defects by surgically implanting a 3D-printed biodegradable scaffold customized to the patient's need,” said Professor Hutmacher, who is director of the Max Planck Queensland Centre and chief investigator at the ARC Training Centre for Multiscale 3D Imaging, Modelling and Manufacturing.
“The team has designed a software prototype to semi-automatically fill defect cavities, ensure patient specificity and ideal surgical scaffold insertion, accommodate scaffold fixation to the host bone, and generate various pore architectures for regenerating bone growth.
“The project will also work on creating a user-friendly interface for clinicians and exploring the feasibility of 3D printing complex pore architectures using medical-grade, biodegradable polymer composites. Additionally, the design suite will be validated for a broad range of diverse bone defect.”
The funding for the project comes in part from the Queensland State Government with matched funding from the Bavarian State Government.
QUT will collaborate with LMU Klinikum, Muskuloskelettales Universitaetszentrum, Munich (MUM), and Kumovis GmbH, a 3D Systems Company, as industry partners.
QUT researchers who are recipients of Seed Grant funding from the Queensland-Bavaria Collaborative Research Program are:
- Distinguished Professor Christopher Barner-Kowollik, (Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President (Research), "Additive manufacturing of carbon materials”.
- Professor Kathryn Fairfull-Smith and Dr Sandra Wiedbrauk (School of Chemistry and Physics), “Probing anti-biofilm treatments with mass-spectrometry”.
- Professor Peter Pivonka (School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering) “Preventing disuse-induced osteoporosis”.
- Professor Davide Fontanarosa (School of Clinical Sciences) and Dr Christopher Edwards (QUT Medical Radiation Sciences), “Towards exploring prenatal joint morphogenesis”.
- Professor Michael Rosemann (School of Management), “Managing generative AI usage”.
- Dr David Herold (School of Management), “How sport fans influence sustainability”.
Main image: QUT Distinguished Professor Dietmar W Hutmacher
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