New polysaccharide based hybrid materials for mineralized tissue regeneration - First Year Report

During the first year of the project, CNR and NRC have collaborated to design novel biomaterials based on polysaccharides to be in vitro tested for the regeneration of bone. NRC group has been mainly involved in the synthesis of nanofibrous cellulose, from cellulose extracted from bagasse in Egypt, firstly, synthesized via TEMPO-oxidization and, then, soy grafted by the amidation reaction of carboxylic groups. Lastly, it has been optimized a bio-mineralization treatment based on the soaking in simulated body fluid to induce the calcium phosphate mineralization. Meanwhile, CNR has been involved in the characterization of the proposed materials in order to validate their use for biological studies. Meanwhile, the optimal conditions to process the synthesized materials via electrofluidodynamic techniques have been investigated in order to design hybrid scaffolds/micro-scaffolds able to reproduce efficient in vitro models for the study of regeneration mechanisms of mineralized tissues. All the research activities have been conducted by the joint of the Laboratory of Cellulose and Paper Chemistry of Giza (NRC) and the laboratories of Electrospinning and Microscopy of Naples (IPCB-CNR) and through the exchange of researchers between the two involved institutions, in agreement with the planned project activities