News
Community engagement is essential to the laboratory as it allows those outside of the lab to stay informed about the current work and new developments. It also provides students and professors the chance to exchange ideas.
Dr Lobo explains his research project that was financed by the Serrapilheira Institution
Aug 30, 2018
Serrapilheira Institute challenged Professor Lobo to present his research to children, academics and specialists in the field. Professor Lobo teamed up with a group of American researchers to continue working towards solutions to treat osteoarthritis, a condition that causes gradual loss of cartilage. The current work involves use of an injectable hydrogel that stimulates bone growth.
says about: "We challenge the biomedical engineer Anderson Lobo to present his research to children, academics and specialists in his area. The sponsored project provided a partnership with American scientists for the treatment of osteoarthritis, the progression of cartilage, from an injectable gel: a substance present in the market of tissue loss, stimulating the growth of a new cartilage." The link to the video is below.
New Research Collaboration Established
April 12, 2025
Bioprinting technology has emerged as an important approach to bone and cartilage tissue engineering applications, because it allows the printing of scaffolds loaded with various components, such as cells, growth factors, or drugs. In this context, the bone has a very complex architecture containing highly vascularized and calcified tissues, while cartilage is avascular and has low cellularity and few nutrients. Owing to this complexity, the repair and regeneration of these tissues are highly challenging. Identification of the appropriate biomaterial and fabrication technologies can provide sustainable solutions to this challenge. Here, nanosized Laponite® (Laponite is a trademark of the company BYK Additives Ltd.) has shown to be a promising material due to its unique properties such as excellent biocompatibility, facile gel formation, shear‐thinning property (reversible physical crosslinking), high specific surface area, degrade into nontoxic products, and with osteoinductive properties. Even though Laponite and Laponite‐based composite for 3D bioprinting application are considered as soft gels, they may therefore not be thought exhibiting sufficient mechanical strength for orthopedic applications. However, through the merging with suitable composite and, also by incorporation of crosslinking step, desired mechanical strength for orthopedic application can be obtained. In this review, recent advances and future perspective of bioprinting Laponite and Laponite composites for orthopedic applications are highlighted.