BEDIMPLANTS · Development of novel biomimetic engineered dental implants for periodontal ligament regeneration

BEDimplants project represents an innovative concept in oral implantology based on a multidisciplinary approach in periodontal regenerative medicine and tissue engineering that has the potential to significantly influence the outcome of medical and dental therapies. The project aims to develop novel biomimetic engineered dental implants (BEDimplants) that self-promote the regeneration of periodontal ligament (PDL) and provide in a single implant therapy the adequate environment to promote specific cell lineages, such as primary human gingival fibroblast (hGF) and dental pulp stem cells (hDPSC), to integrate, differentiate and proliferate within an artificial biomimetic extracellular matrix (aECM). The utilization of natural products and biomolecules present in the native periodontal ECM such as collagen, hyaluronic acid and cell signaling molecules, BMPs and TGFbs, to be grafted onto titanium surfaces is presented as a promising approach to the development of novelty implantable devices that mimic the complexity of ECM which can be reabsorbed or degraded by the organism after their implantation. Furthermore, self-crosslinkable bioactive peptide sequences (RGD and DGEA) can be synthesized and chemically linked to those biomolecules tailoring their biofunctionality and providing a biomimetic three-dimensional aECM-g-Ti scaffold that can be implanted in the presence of the appropriate cell cocktail that fulfill all the requirements of PDL tissue engineering.