Maxillofacial Bone Regeneration
Our lab aims to develop regenerative therapies targeting regeneration of bone defects. We adopt cell-based and cell-free strategies across the spectrum from basic lab studies to pre-clinical and clinical trials with a focus on regeneration of bone, cartilage and blood vessels.
We are a young group working on bone regeneration of the facial structures. Patients with maxillofacial bone defects need bone tissue substitutes to reshape their face, to speak and to anchor teeth for chewing food. These bone defects may arise from an accident, cancer, infection or due to congenital malformations. Examples of defects include cleft palate, sinus floor augmentation, alveolar augmentation or segmental mandibular defects.
Our team designs bio-inspired regenerative approaches to restore such defects. We employ stem cell technologies or biomaterials advances with state-of-the-art regenerative technologies to recapitulate natural tissue development and regeneration.
The majority of our research projects aim at two cell-based routes to bone regeneration, inspired by natural mechanisms.
1) Recapitulation of endochondral bone formation so far has proven to offer great potential for translation into clinical application. This concept is based on the implantation of an engineered (lab-grown) cartilage tissue that following implantation can be remodeled by the body into patient-own bone. A modular strategy is currently adopted where small cartilage tissues are engineered that can be glued together to generate a bone template of desired shape. Our modules are non-living, which enables scale-up, storage and off-the-shelf use. Current efforts are under the XLbone project (NWO)
2) The creation of large engineered tissue constructs requires the introduction of vasculature. These prevascularized bone constructs could be applied in large clinical defects with limited vascular supply, including e.g. mandibular defects after oncological resections or in non-unions. We have established methods to create capillary-like networks in biomaterial-based lab cultures. Also, regeneration of small diameter blood vessels is researched in our group. Current efforts are directed at the generation of multi-scale vascular networks and in vitro models.
Smaller projects in our lab are exploring the use of dental pulp stem cells and calcium phosphates to restore bone defects.
People
Name | Position | Contact/Linkedin | Additional info |
Debby Gawlitta, PhD | Associate Professor |
| |
Kenny Man | Postdoc |
| XLbone project |
Flurina Staubli | PhD student |
| XLbone project, endochondral bone regeneration |
Jonelle Meijer | PhD student |
| MDR program, in vitro models for vascularization |
Rui He | PhD student |
| CSC scholar, DPSCs, microtissue production |
Tianyu Yang | PhD student |
| CSC scholar, cell-free regeneration |
Leanne de Silva | PhD student |
| RESCUE Cofund, vascularization of engineered bone |
Paree Khokhani | PhD student |
| Member of Weinans/Kruyt group, Orthopedics lab, UMC Utrecht |
Nada Rahmani | PhD student |
| Member of Weinans/Kruyt group, Orthopedics lab, UMC Utrecht |
Highlighted and recent work
Bone Regeneration in a Large Animal Model Featuring a Modular Off-the-Shelf Soft Callus Mimetic. de Silva L, Longoni A, Staubli F, Nurmohamed S, Duits A, Rosenberg AJWP, Gawlitta D. Adv Healthc Mater. 2023 Nov;12(29):e2301717. doi: 10.1002/adhm.202301717 |
Osteoinductive calcium phosphate with submicron topography as bone graft substitute for maxillary sinus floor augmentation: A translational study. van Dijk LA, Janssen NG, Nurmohamed SJ, Muradin MSM, Longoni A, Bakker RC, de Groot FG, de Bruijn JD, Gawlitta D, Rosenberg AJWP. Clin Oral Implants Res. 2023 Mar;34(3):177-195. doi: 10.1111/clr.14028 |
Special issue: Biofabrication for Orthopedic, Maxillofacial, and Dental Applications. Lim KS, Zreiqat H, Gawlitta D. Acta Biomater. 2023 Jan 15;156:1-3. doi: 10.1016/j.actbio.2022.12.064. |
Evaluating material-driven regeneration in a tissue engineered human in vitro bone defect model. de Wildt BWM, Cramer EEA, de Silva LS, Ito K, Gawlitta D, Hofmann S. Bone. 2023 Jan;166:116597. doi: 10.1016/j.bone.2022.116597. |
Biofabricating the vascular tree in engineered bone tissue. de Silva L, Bernal PN, Rosenberg A, Malda J, Levato R, Gawlitta D. Acta Biomater. 2023 Jan 15;156:250-268. doi: 10.1016/j.actbio.2022.08.051. |
Acceleration of Bone Regeneration Induced by a Soft-Callus Mimetic Material. Longoni A, Utomo L, Robinson A, Levato R, Rosenberg AJWP, Gawlitta D. Adv Sci (Weinh). 2022 Feb;9(6):e2103284. doi: 10.1002/advs.202103284. |
Former PhD students and postdocs
Name | Past position | Additional info |
Lucas van Dijk | PhD in 2022 | Enhancing bone regeneration by calcium phosphates with surface topography - A translational evaluation of synthetic bone graft substitutes |
Iris Pennings
| PhD in 2020 | Bioengineering of pre-vascularized bone tissue analogues |
Alessia Longoni | PhD in 2020 | Endochondral bone regeneration: stepping stones towards clinical translation |
Barbara Klotz | PhD in 2020 | Engineering Gelatin-Based Biomatrices for Pre-vascularisation of Bone Analogues |
Lizette Utomo | Postdoc, 2018-2020 | MACRON project (mandibular condyle regeneration) |
Willemijn Boot | PhD in 2018 | Recent developments in diagnosis and prophylaxis of orthopaedic implant-related infections |
Marianne Koolen | PhD in 2018 | Building better bone |
Vivian Mouser | PhD in 2017 | Bio-inks for 3D printing of cartilage implants – Tailoring gelMA and polyHPMA-lac-PEG hydrogels for the fabrication of spatially organized constructs |
Jetze Visser
| PhD in 2015 (cum laude)
| Biofabrication of implants for articular joint repair - Cartilage regeneration in reinforced gelatin-based hydrogels |
Linda Kock | Postdoc, 2012-2014 |
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