Dear Colleagues,

Bone disorders and conditions such as osteoporosis, bone fractures and bone infections are increasing. These are mainly  related to an increase in life expectancy together with obesity and poor physical activity in aging populations.

Bone tissue engineering is one of the most promising strategies for the treatment of patients, as well as for active aging, using a combination of biomaterials, cells and target molecular signals mimicking the bone microenvironment. Several 3D matrices can be applied to induce new functional bone regeneration as ceramic materials, natural polymers, and ceramic- and polymer-based biocomposites. Scaffolds for bone tissue engineering need to comply with several requirements, particularly biocompatibility, osteoconduction and osteoinduction. Moreover, this field is rapidly evolving into new areas of innovation. Particularly, a new generation of bone scaffolds has emerged in the last few years with features for improved regeneration, such as combined levels of porosity (macro-, micro-, and nanoporosity) and immobilized biomolecules. Frequently, this new generation of scaffolds can also function in other simultaneous processes such as vascularization, inflammation and, sometimes, infection. For successful commercialization, these materials should also be easy to handle and implant during surgical procedures, as well as being cost-effective and having reasonable shelf-lives.

Following our nomination as Editors of a Special Issue of the Journal Materials, published by MDPI and dedicated to “Scaffolds for Bone Tissue Engineering”, it is our pleasure to invite you to submit a manuscript for this Special Issue. Full papers, communications and reviews are all welcome.

Prof. Dr. Susana R. Sousa
Dr. Catarina C. Coelho
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Materials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• scaffolds
• bone tissue engineering
• bone regeneration
• bone-graft substitutes
• bone infection
• antibacterial materials
• ceramic-based biomaterials