Dear Colleagues,

Regenerating critical-sized bone defects or repairing non-union bone fractures remains a significant challenge in the orthopedic society.  There is a great need to develop new and effective approaches to replace the current “gold-standard” treatment consisting of bone autograft, which might result in complications, such as infection and donor-site morbidity. Over the last twenty years, much efforts have been directed to bone tissue engineering approaches, which involve three key players: (1) scaffold, (2) cells, and (3) soluble factors. As one of the key cornerstones of bone tissue engineering, a desired scaffold should satisfy requirements such as biodegradability, strong mechanical properties, and osteoinductivity and/or condunctivity, the latter important in promoting the desirable cell phenotype (e.g., osteoblasts).

Given that bone is a nanomaterial composed of organic (mainly collagen) and inorganic (mainly nano-hydroxyapatite) components, with a hierarchical structure ranging from the macroscale to the nanoscale, the bone scaffold has to mimic the chemical and/or physical characteristics of the bone extracellular matrix (ECM). This will result in nanostructured scaffolds with the desirable architectural, topographical, and mechanical properties. Such scaffolds with structural similarity to the native bone architecture can regulate cell proliferation, differentiation, and migration, leading to the formation of functional tissues. 

In this Special Issue, we invite investigators to contribute original research as well as review articles related to developing nanomaterials for bone tissue regeneration. The topics include, but are not limited to:

• Design, synthesis, and functionalization of composite biomaterials/nanobiomaterials for bone tissue regeneration;
• Innovative nanomaterials that can mimic the bone extracellular matrix (ECM) to control stem cell fate for bone tissue regeneration;
• Applications of nanomaterials as drug-delivering platforms and nucleotides-delivering vehicles for bone tissue regeneration;
• Applications of nanomaterials for cell labeling and tracking.

Dr. Zufu Lu
Prof. Dr. Hala Zreiqat
Dr. Yogambha Ramaswamy
Guest Editors

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• bone tissue engineering
• nanomaterials
• nanoparticles
• stem cells