2nd World Congress on
Advanced Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering

Alejandra Suarez Arnedo, completed her B.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering and Microbiology at Universidad de los Andes, she is currently a Master’s student in biological sciences with an emphasis in Microbiology and Biomedical Engineering. She conducts research on cellular differentiation and design of extracellular matrices using alginate hydrogels at the Laboratory of Human Genetics. Finally, she is very passionate about improving the health and wellbeing via the study of tissue engineering.

Currently, the design of extracellular matrices is directed towards mimicking the cellular microenvironment. Additionally, these matrices allow the study of cell behavior in response to varying physicochemical and mechanical properties. For instance, mechanical properties such as stiffness have been reported to alter cell differentiation, adhesion, and viability. Thus far, the cellular response studies have been conducted on two-dimensional (2D) substrates; nonetheless, three-dimensional (3D) microenvironments appear most suitable to approach to native cellular behavior. Alginate hydrogels provide an appealing 3D microenvironment; however, a full characterization of mechanical property-function relationships is still elusive. This study is therefore dedicated to determine if changes in the stiffness of alginate hydrogels might lead to significant cytoskeletal changes in cells upon encapsulation. Methods and materials: Hydrogels with alginate contents of 2% and 4% (w/v) were prepared by the diffusion method. Subsequently, hydrogels stiffness was determined via atomic force microscopy (AFM). Finally, Vero cells were encapsulated in the hydrogels where actin fillaments were stained and and imaged using Confocal microscopy. Results and Discussion: Stiffness values of the 2% and the 4% hydrogels were significantly different(p-value <0.0001) and approached 30.5 kPa and 300.3 kPa, respectively. Additionally, a simple inspection revealed tha actin filament was most abundant for the 4% hydrogel (Figure 1). Accordingly, it is possible to suggest that, as for the 2D systems, a more rigid 3D microenvironment can lead to an increase of actin filaments. Furthermore, the observed cell geometries suggest that not only focal adhesions with the extracellular matrix but local changes in mechanical properties are responsible for important structural changes in cells.

Najeong Park is a passionate researcher in the field of medical device. She graduated from Ajou University, Republic of Korea in 2017 with a master degree in molecular science and technology. During master course, she had studied fabricating and characterizing biomaterials, especially natural polymer based soft scaffolds (2014~2017). She is currently a researcher of Medical device program in Samyang Biopharmaceuticals Corp. She has concentrated on finding Market needs and developing medical device composed of synthetic or natural polymer (2017~).

As the era of population aging approached, people pursue a beautiful life along with a healthy life. Several injectable dermal fillers have been launched and become an increasingly popular option in the treatment for not only aesthetic facial enhancements but also congenital or traumatic facial, body, and soft tissue defects. HA (hyaluronic acid) filler accounts for 90% of the current market. However, there has been a growing demand for safer and longer-lasting products in the beauty market. In this way, fillers using biodegradable polymers have attracted much attention in the market due to their longer-lasting properties and intrinsic volumizing effect. Unlike HA filler, which maintains the volume of skin with the volume of the product itself, the biodegradable polymer filler regenerates and maintains the volume naturally by inducing the production of collagen as the polymer is biodegraded. Among them, ε -Poly(caprolactone) (PCL) based dermal filler is introduced into the beauty market in 2009 with the properties of biodegradable and safety which has been approved by FDA and CE. In this study, we developed new PCL based dermal filler, SF-01 composed of porous microspheres. The purpose of this study is the comparison of two kinds of PCL based dermal filler (SF-01 with porous microspheres, licensed PCL filler with smooth microspheres) by testing physical properties and performing preclinical evaluation. The values of injectability, rheological properties, initial volume, durability until 24th week, inflammatory/foreign body reaction, and collagen formation of SF-01 were tested and compared with licensed PCL filler product. Overall, it is confirmed that SF-01 is superior in durability and shape retention compared to the licensed product, and the in vivo safety is equivalent. These results suggest our SF-01 would be a promising candidate for dermal augmentation.

Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is an appropriate material as a scaffold to be applied to human body due to its characteristics of biocompatibility, transparency, and flexibility. Here, PDMS film was fabricated by spin-coating, and the thickness of the film was reduced by diluting PDMS solution with hexane to make films easier to be applied to human body by reducing the volume of substrate. By using 40 times of hexane to PDMS solution, the thickness of the film was reduced from 5μm to 420nm. However, the hydrophobicity of PDMS film made it difficult for cells to attach and grow on the polymer surface. To solve this problem, the hydrophobic surface was treated by two methods; 3-chloropropyltriethoxysilane (CPTES) coating and hydrochloric acid (HCl) coating after corona treatment. Bovine satellite cells were cultivated on the PDMS film to check the effectiveness of the film as a substrate for the growth of cells. In this experiment, widely used plastic cell plate was selected as control which cannot act as a substrate. The cell growth on the HCl-coated PDMS films showed 65% of effectiveness compared to that of control plate when the number of cells were measured after 72 hours of seeding, and that of CPTES -coated PDMS films showed maximum 43% of effectiveness, which was slightly different by concentration of CPTES. Although the surface-modified PDMS thin films showed lower effectiveness than control plate, these results demonstrate the potential of CPTES-treated and HCl-treated nano-scale thin PDMS film as a substrate for the growth of animal cells.

Stefania SCIALLA is a junior Post doc at the Institute of Nanotechnology (NANOTEC) CNR of Lecce. She received her Master's degree in Molecular and Industrial Biotechnology (2011) at University of Federico II (Naples), and awarded her Ph.D in Materials and Structures Engineering at the University of Salento (Lecce), focusing on biomaterials for tissue engineering.

Recently, the field of marine-derived biomaterials gained a considerable interest from researchers. Particularly, much attention has been devoted to the valorisation of by-products (e.g. shells, bones, etc.), exploring their potential for high added value compounds production1,2. Many valuable products could be extracted from these wastes, including hydroxyapatite, collagen and calcium carbonate. To date, these compounds are produced by chemical reactions3; therefore, their extraction from marine waste biomass could be an effective way to reduce the disposal costs, which represent a big challenge for the manufacturers, by converting them into bioactive compounds and with commercial value. The aim of this study is to valorise fish waste and recover the mineral phases present, using simple thermal and/or chemical processes, to obtain biomaterials with specific biological features. Specifically, the mineral phase has been recovered by thermal treatment2 from fish bones, by testing different temperature, heating ramp and/or time. Starting from seashell, on the other hand, chemical conversion has been studied, by using mild condition like avoiding strictly acid environment4. With these processes, high purity calcium phosphates (CaP) powders can be produced, with good bioactivity features. The powders were fully characterized; in particular, features such as morphology (see Fig.1), phase composition, surface area and bioactivity were tested. Some selected powders were successively used to fabricate 3D scaffolds.

Farah Alwani Azaman has graduated with Bachelor of Science with Honours in Industrial Chemical Technology from Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia last November. She has a great passion to spread the wisdom and knowledge in research field to the world nation and she currently wants to benefit all the human beings through the technology and innovation in her present and future projects. To achieve her ambition, she is now pursuing her Masters study in Athlone Institute of Technology, Ireland in Polymer Engineering under Dr. Declan M. Devine and Dr. Margaret E. Brennan Fournet. Her research in fabricating biomimetic bone scaffolds has been conducted since February 2018 and she is looking forward for this project to be a success and thus contributing as a significant part in bone tissue engineering research.

Osteogenic factors are a must have feature of bone regeneration scaffolds. Here we present a biomimetic delivery scaffold that is directly translatable to clinical applications, integrating multiple intricate factors in an orthopaedic implant that is easy to fabricate and adopt in the surgical setting. The straightforward preparation of a microporous bio-active scaffold designed for sustained bio-agent release is presented. Chitosan, combined with osteoconductive bio-ceramics form the basis of the scaffold architecture. The sustained release of growth factors (GF) for bone repair after trauma or nonunion fractures is demonstrated. An in situ crosslinking step provides a unique route to overcome the low GF stability and short half-life challenges under physiological conditions. High initial burst release is prevented with effective prolonged delivery demonstrated. The scaffold crosslinking reaction, mechanical properties and degradation profile characterization will be described. The bioactive bone regeneration implant presents a substantial list of essential criteria including biocompatibility, biodegradability, micro/nano-architectural physical cues and holds a great promise for therapeutic bone tissue repair

Nouha Setti is a 4th year PhD student in biological engineering in the laboratory of proteins engineering and bioactive molecules (LIP-mb) INSAT (National institute of applied science and technology Tunisia). Passionate with molecular oncology and research to improve clinical diagnosis and prognosis, I have proceeded my research work in my modest laboratory in tunisia and had the chance to be welcomed in the SAFU unit, regina elena national institute of cancer Rome and have learned and improved my knowledge in terms of technologies and analysis and hope to be accepted in this honorable meeting in order to get the chance to meet other researchers and learn more. Two papers are in submission and further work has been started this month.

Urinary bladder cancer (BCa) is the second most common malignancy in Tunisian male patients. Hsa-miR-9 and hsa-miR-143 have been reported to be deregulated in many types of tumors.Recent evidences indicate a regulatory role of these miRNA’s in BCa genesis and progression.They interact with many targets such as LMNA or K-RAS that are implicated in intracellular signaling pathways known to be deregulated in BCa like PI3K,mTOR or MAPK.The aim of the present study was to investigate the prognosis and the biological impact of miR-9,miR-143 and LMNA deregulation in Tunisian BCa patients. 90 cases were included and were divided in low and high grade non muscle invasive BCa (LG/HG NMIBC) and muscle invasive BCa (MIBC).Risk groups of recurrence and progression were established using the EORTC scoring. The expression patterns of miR-9, miR-143 and LMNA were defined using RT- QPCR and the2-deltadeltaCTmethod.Association to clinicopathological factors was analyzed using the student test and Pearson correlation.Our data indicated a high expression of miR-9 and LMNA and a low expression of miR-143 in tumors compared to non-tumoral controls (p<0.05). miR-9 and miR-143 expression showed different profiles between NMIBC and MIBC (p=0,002, p=0,001 respectively) but only miR-9 shown a discriminating patterns between (LG NMIBC) vs (HG NMIBC) (p value =0,008).Then,the up-regulation of miR-9 was associated to progression (p=0,037) and exposure to occupational carcinogens (p=0,02) and the down-regulation of miR-143 was associated to the intensity of tobacco use (p=0,04), alcohol consumption (p=0,04) and multifocality (p=0,04).Finally,a significant correlation was revealed between miR-9 and LMNAmRNA expression levels (p=0.0001; r=0.913) and miR-143 and LMNAmRNA (p= 0,001).These positive associations were only found in the LG NMIBC group. We concluded that these associations could be considered as “driver events” of BCa tumorigenesis and that miR-9 indirectly influence LMNA expression through the interaction with other targets mRNAs.These hypotheses should be confirmed by further functional studies.