Description

Currently, there are several tissue engineering strategies meant to overcome the incomplete or insufficient bone regeneration conditions offered by autologous bone graft or surgery approaches. In the last decade, attention has been focused toward finding the equilibrium between a suitable scaffold with osteoinductive properties, a cell source with evident potential to develop bone tissue and the appropriate pro-osteogenic factors to condition the differentiation process after cell-scaffold implantation. Consequently, this chapter aims to discuss the benefits that graphene and its derivatives, graphene oxide (GO), bring both to the scaffold biomaterial and to the interaction between the material and the cellular component in order to create a favorable micro-environment for efficient osteogenic differentiation process. Several advantages of including GO in the composition of the materials are shown in relation to cell viability, proliferation, attachment, and osteogenic differentiation.

Chapter