Lay summary
Bone defects often result from fractures, trauma, resection of tumors, as well as diseases such as osteoporosis or arthritis. However, the current treatments for these defects often result in complications such as incomplete bone healing where the bone does not properly fuse or does not allow proper alignment. In recent years, regenerative medicine approach which involves the combination of cells within tissue engineered scaffolds incorporated with growth factors, has emerged as an alternative treatment. These growth factors are particularly important as they are the critical signalling molecules that trigger and instruct specific cellular responses in a biological environment, such as cell survival, differentiation, proliferation and organisation to elicit a functional repair tissue. This research project will develop a growth factor delivery system based on hydrogels, that can deliver multiple growth factors sequentially in a controlled manner, as well as over multiple time frames to successfully regenerate vascularised bone.