PhD defence L.C. (Lisanne) Groeneveldt

Below is a brief summary of the dissertation:

In the clinic, bone grafts are used to treat bone defects caused by trauma, tumor removal, congenital defects or prosthetic treatments. The use of the patient’s own bone tissue for this is however subject to limitations and is often accompanied by complications. The field of bone tissue aims searches for alternative materials for bone transplants, in particular by using an effective combination of the appropriate living cells, growth and differentiation factors that stimulate these cells, and three-dimensional structures, known as scaffolds. The research described in this PhD thesis focuses on investigating the optimal source of progenitor cells for bone tissue engineering. Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) were used for stimulating the cells, and various scaffolds were tested. Most efforts were dedicated to using periosteum-derived cells (hPDCs), collected from a tissue (called periosteum) that covers healthy bone tissue.  These hPDCs, including these specifically from the mandibular, have significant potential for bone formation through a process by which bone fractures are normally healed by the human body. These cells could first be expanded efficiently ex vivo without loss of their bone-forming and –stimulating capacity. Also, during culture prior treatment of the cells with BMP2, and the use of CopiOs-type scaffolds for transplantation, was shown to be an ideal combination.