Bone cements are widely used in maxillofacial surgery, repair of cranial defects, and dental fillings. Calcium phosphate bone cements are useful in many types of bone repair because they conform to the defect area, harden in situ, and can be resorbed and replaced by new bone. When the cements are injectable, they can also be used for minimally invasive surgery and filling narrow cavities and defects with limited accessibility. However, although calcium phosphate cements are biocompatible and set isothermally, they are only osteoconductive and do not possess osteoinductive properties. Attempts to augment the bioactivity of the material with growth factors have been limited by rapid diffusion of the growth factor away from the material. Therefore, there is a significant unmet clinical need for a bone cement that can retain and release osteoinductive factors at the site of healing. To that end, Affinergy has developed peptides with high affinities for osteoinductive growth factors. In this application, we propose to use our growth factor-binding peptides to capture autologous growth factors and deliver them with an injectable bone cement. In addition to oral and maxillofacial surgery, the final product could be modified for use in vertebroplasty, treatment of osteoporotic bones at risk of fracture, and minimally invasive repair of fresh fractures.
Bone cements support the growth of bone in a variety of procedures, but they lack the ability to induce bone growth. Growth factors can enhance bone formation but are limited by the lack of optimal carriers. In this application, we propose to test a novel bone cement as a carrier for growth factors.
