Non-destructive assessment of cell repopulation in scaffolds for osteochondral regeneration through X-ray phase-contrast microtomography

Osteochondral tissue engineering is an expanding field aiming to understand and repair the enthesis between cartilage and bone. One major challenge in this process is the characterization of the three-dimensional scaffolds and their interaction with cells, particularly as most available imaging techniques use either 2D or sample-destructive approaches. X-rays are unique in their ability to prove volumes of opaque tissue with depth penetration and high resolution non-destructively. They usually provide good contrast when the details of interest are of different atomic compositions to the background, however, when contrast is needed between similar types of tissue the lack of differences in attenuation prevents the conventional approaches to microtomography from being effective. We proposed investigating X-ray phase contrast imaging techniques to overcome a roadblock in developing these types of constructs by providing a non-destructive inspection technology capable of visualising cell migration and scaffold repopulation. The project will involve a bottom-up development of the imaging methodology, specifically targeting the challenges posed by these samples. Experiments will follow for demonstrating the new approach's capabilities and its integration into osteochondral regeneration research workflows. Once established the methodology will be made available to researchers from Industry and Academia through the National Research Facility for X-ray Tomography.