In tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, bioactive glasses (BGs)
offer many potential advantages. These inorganic substances belong to the bioceramics
family and are traditionally produced in powder and granular formats via the sol-gel
and melt-quenching synthesis routes. In order to mimic the native structure of human
tissues, BGs should be fabricated into three-dimensional (3D) constructs (i.e.,
scaffolds). There are specific conventional fabrication methods for producing BGbased scaffolds (e.g., foam replication); however, they suffer from some critical
limitations such as the lack of exact control on the pore dimension and distribution. In
this regard, additive manufacturing (AM), also known as 3D printing, has emerged for
the generation of precise and high-resolution BG-based scaffolds. Currently, 3D
printing of BG-based scaffolds is performed by using a series of well-developed AM
techniques, including direct 3D printing, selective laser sintering (SLS), robocasting,
and stereolithography (SLA). In some methods, BGs are added to polymeric matrices
and then introduced into the 3D printing machine as a raw material. In general, 3Dprinted constructs exhibit important advantages over conventionally-fabricated tissueengineering scaffolds in terms of reproducibility, scalability, architecture (e.g., controllable strut thickness, pore shape and size), and biomechanical properties. It is of
significance that BGs can be simultaneously printed with mammalian cells (e.g., stem
cells), known as 3D bioprinting. Still, some challenges (e.g., decreased cell viability)
remain that should be addressed by conducting further research and proposing
innovative solutions.
Keywords: Additive manufacturing, Bioactive glasses (BGs), Bioprinting, Bone regeneration, Direct ink writing (DIW), Mesoporous bioactive glasses (MBGs), Melt quenching, Osteogenesis, Powder technology, Regenerative medicine, Robocasting, Scaffold, Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), Sol-gel method, Stereolithography (SLA), Tissue engineering, Wound healing.
