• Our researched featured on the cover of Materials Horizons

• Received the Early Career Researcher Award 

Press release by Elsevier: Dr. Amir A. Zadpoor has received the Early Career Researcher Award on the 6^th International Conference on Mechanics of Biomaterials and Tissues held in Waikoloa, Hawaii, USA from 6-10 December 2015. This is the first award of the journal of this sort with the purpose of identifying young outstanding researchers in the research fields the journal covers, and inviting them to be involved in the journal both as special issue editors and board members.

• ERC grant

Press release by TU Delft: 3D printing meets origami (BIO-ORIGAMI)

Complete regeneration of functional tissues is the holy grail of tissue engineering and could revolutionise treatment of many diseases. Effective tissue regeneration often calls for multi-functional biomaterials. Ideally, these porous biomaterials should be optimised not only in terms of their 3D structure but also in terms of their surface nano-topography.
3D printing enables us to create very complex 3D structures, but the access to the surface is very limited during the 3D printing process. Nanolithography techniques enable the generation of very complex surface nano-topographies but generally only on flat surfaces. There is currently no way of combining arbitrarily complex 3D structures with arbitrarily complex surface nano-topographies.
In this project, the ancient Japanese art of paper folding (i.e. origami) is used to solve this deadlock. In this approach, flat surfaces are first 3D printed in a particular way to teach them how to self-fold. The flat surface is then decorated with complex nano-topographies. Finally, the self-folding mechanism is activated to enable folding of the flat sheet and the formation of complex 3D structures.

Additive manufacturing (AM) has emerged as a powerful technique for manufacturing of various types of biomaterials and implants. Using AM, it is now possible to fabricate biomaterials with arbitrarily complex shapes at different scales. The inventory of biomaterials that can be used in this way continues to increase, extending the possible range of products and applications. The mechanical properties of the resulting materials and implants are of utmost importance, not only because a certain level of mechanical support is needed in most applications but also because the distribution of mechanical properties could significantly influence tissue regeneration performance and osseointegration. Moreover, the mechanical properties of biodegradable biomaterials tend to change over time, as biodegradation progresses. AM allows precise control of microarchitecture in porous biomaterials, which has been shown to strongly affect mechanical behavior. We believe that this is a good time to produce a special issue which brings together the latest work on biomaterials made using AM and their mechanical properties. The topics covered by the special issue include (but are not limited to):

• Mechanical properties of AM porous biomaterials
• Relationship between processing parameters, micro-structure, and mechanical properties of AM biomaterialsDevelopments of new
• AM techniques to improve or adjust the mechanical properties of biomaterial
• AM implants
• New materials for AM with novel properties
• Mechanical properties of biodegradable biomaterials fabricated using AM
• Shape-property relationships in AM biomaterials
• Mechanical interactions, osseointegration, and tissue regeneration of AM biomaterials

Manuscript Submission:

Manuscripts should be formatted and be submitted online according to the instructions for Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials at http://www.elsevier.com/journals/journal-of-the-mechanical-behavior-of-biomedical-materials/1751-6161/guide-for-authors . The authors must select “SI: AM biomaterials” when specifying the “Article Type” in the submission system via http://ees.elsevier.com/jmbbm/default.asp. All submissions will undergo the peer review process.

Timelines:

Submission start: 1 November 2015
Submission deadline: 15 January 2016
Acceptance deadline: 30 June 2016
Expected publication of the special issue: August/September 2016

Guest Editors:

Amir A Zadpoor, Delft University of Technology
a.a.zadpoor@tudelft.nl

David Taylor, Trinity College Dublin
dtaylor@tcd.ie