Photo: UBCO

Bone replacement could get a whole lot more accurate thanks to a UBC Okanagan researcher.

Hossein Montazerian, a research assistant at UBCO’s School of Engineering, has found a way to model and create artificial bone grafts that can be printed exactly as needed.

“When designing artificial bone scaffolds, it’s a fine balance between something that is porous enough to mix with natural bone and connective tissue, but at the same time strong enough for patients to lead a normal life,” says Montazerian. “We’ve identified a design that strikes that balance and can be custom built using a 3D printer,” he said.

Montazerian compared 240 different bone graft designs and focused on those that were both porous and strong.

“A few of the structures really stood out,” Montazerian said. “The best designs were up to 10 times stronger than the others, and since they have properties that are much more similar to natural bone, they’re less likely to cause problems over the long term.”

“We hope to produce bone grafts that will be ultra-porous, where the bone and connective tissues meet and are extra-strong at the points under the most stress. The ultimate goal is to produce a replacement that almost perfectly mimics real bone,” he added.