Regeneration of bone is a critical process in dentistry and orthopaedics, to restore function. It is my view that it is always important to consider the health economics (or cost benefit analysis) when developing a new implant material. We can develop very complex devices, but if these devices are too expensive for the benefit, they will not succeed in their market area. With this in mind, I will describe some of the ways we have tried to approach the problem of bone regeneration. This presentation will describe the structure of bone and how some of these properties have been mimicked in bone graft materials. Our current work utilizes controlled release glass systems to provide ion at levels that will stimulate new bone formation. I will also describe some work utilizing fusion protein technology and couplgin this with 3D printed scaffolds for rapid regeneration of bone defects. Current work has also focused on developing new resins for 3D printing of custom fit bone graft materials and how we went about designing a new light curable degradable resin. We will also present some of our current work on developing stratified tissue such as bone and cartilage interfaces.

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