Biomimetic bone grafts and substitutes: A review of recent advancements and applications

The demand for designing an ideal bone substitute has emerged significantly to address the clinical limitations associated with the current bone grafting materials. A thorough understanding of the complex architecture and cellular composition of natural bone is crucial to design a biomimetic bone graft that closely emulates the physiological structure of the lost bone. There is a dire need for close collaboration among clinicians, nanotechnologists, and tissue engineers to design clinically relevant bone grafts that can promote efficient osteoconduction, osteogenesis and osteoinduction. Clinically, bone grafting procedures mainly involves the utilization of xenografts, allografts or autograft, a combination of natural and synthetic materials, polymer, metals and bioceramics. The advent of 3D printing techniques has revolutionized the field of bone tissue engineering. These additive manufacturing technologies utilizing digital design features and high precision enable researchers to replicate complex anatomical structures including bone. This review aims to present an overview of the determinants of an ideal bone graft, types of available bone grafting materials, and emphasizes the recent advancements in the field of regenerative medicine for designing biomimetic bone repairing scaffolds.