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A new Australian clinical trial has demonstrated the success of personalised bioengineered scaffolds to regenerate large jawbone defects—and dental laboratories are well placed to help lead the transformation. By Shane Conroy
Digital workflows have already transformed how dental technicians design and fabricate restorations, but a new application is emerging that could extend those same skills into regenerative care.
A new Australian early-phase clinical trial led by Professor Saso Ivanovski, head of the School of Dentistry at the University of Queensland, has successfully used personalised bioengineered scaffolds to restore large jawbone defects using patient-specific design.
For dental labs, the relevance is clear: the planning tools already used for prosthetics—including intraoral scanning, CBCT integration, and CAD software—are also essential for designing these regenerative scaffolds. So lab technicians are ideally placed to play a key role in shaping not just the restoration, but the scaffold that helps rebuild the tissue beneath it.
In conventional implant dentistry, dentists often rely on grafting techniques to reconstruct lost bone or soft tissue. These grafts may be harvested from the patient, a donor, or animal sources, and are typically trimmed to fit during surgery. However, while widely used, traditional grafting may come with some significant drawbacks including potential surgical complications, variable quality, and a lack of anatomical precision.
Personalised bioengineered scaffolds are a new class of regenerative devices designed to overcome these limitations. Digital imaging and 3D modelling is used to custom-design scaffolds to fit a patient’s specific defect. Then, once implanted, these scaffolds serve as a biological guide to support the generation of new bone and tissue, before gradually dissolving as the patient heals.
The trial involved designing and 3D printing custom scaffolds to repair large jawbone defects in 10 patients following surgical cyst removal. Scaffolds were implanted during surgery and monitored for how well they integrated, promoted bone regeneration, and supported soft tissue healing without the need for traditional grafts.
Fabricating a solution
Unlike traditional grafting materials or membranes, which are typically solid and not personalised, the trial focuses on personalised bioengineered scaffolds with a porous internal structure that guides tissue regeneration. That’s because, to be effective, a scaffold must allow blood vessels and cells to grow into it through a porous internal structure.
“Porosity enables the body to bring in blood vessels, cells, and ultimately mature bone,” explains Professor Ivanovski. “3D printing is the only method that lets us create that kind of controlled porous structure at the scale we need.”
While milling or casting is adept at producing solid or layered forms, 3D printing allows for the fabrication of sponge-like scaffolds with highly controlled internal geometry. These structures are key to supporting healing and ensuring the scaffold gradually degrades as new tissue forms.
In the trial, the scaffolds were printed from a composite of polycaprolactone (PCL), which provides long-term dimensional stability and degrades slowly over 18 to 24 months. To further support healing, platelet-rich fibrin (PRF) was applied directly to the scaffold during surgery. This enhances integration with surrounding tissue while avoiding the added cost and strict regulatory hurdles that come with pre-loading scaffolds with growth factors or stem cells.
Scaffolds in practice
For patients, the benefits of scaffold-guided regeneration are significant, especially in cases where traditional grafting is complex or may be unreliable. By matching the shape and size of the defect from the outset, a custom-designed scaffold can restore volume more accurately and minimise the need for chairside adjustments.
Porosity enables the body to bring in blood vessels, cells, and ultimately mature bone. 3D printing is the only method that lets us create that kind of controlled porous structure at the scale we need.
Professor Saso Ivanovski, head, UQ School of Dentistry
“But it’s not just about regeneration,” Professor Ivanovski explains. “A personalised scaffold makes the surgery more efficient and more predictable because it fits the defect immediately, so there’s no trimming or guesswork involved.”
This improved precision can also reduce surgical time and, in many cases, eliminate the need to harvest bone or tissue from another part of the patient’s body, thus avoiding the pain and potential complications of a second surgical site that may be necessary with traditional grafting techniques.
Scaffolds used in the trial have shown promising healing and integration, including in complex cases that would normally require multiple surgical stages. When used to treat large jawbone defects in 10 patients, the scaffolds successfully maintained space, supported soft tissue healing, and showed progressive bone fill over time, with no adverse reactions or implant exposures reported during follow-up.
From a regulatory standpoint, the personalised scaffolds are classified as Class III medical devices in Australia. This means they must meet stringent requirements for safety, sterility, traceability, and manufacturing compliance, comparable to implantable devices like heart valves.
To meet these requirements, the study used a controlled workflow involving Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP)-compliant 3D printing and approval by a Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC). All scaffolds were custom-designed, manufactured under sterile conditions, and implanted under strict surgical protocols.
What’s next for dental labs
While routine, large-scale clinical adoption will depend on further trials, regulatory approval, and standardised manufacturing, dental laboratories are already well-positioned to contribute to scaffold design with many of the core tools that will be needed, including intraoral scanning, CBCT integration, and CAD/CAM software already in daily use.
High compliance standards, on the other hand, may be a barrier for dental labs keen to take on full-scale fabrication of the scaffolds. As scaffolds are implanted into living tissue, higher compliance standards are triggered than those required for crowns or guides. GMP certification, validated sterilisation processes, and ISO-aligned quality systems are all necessary.
However, Professor Ivanovski sees a possible solution in future self-contained manufacturing units designed to simplify compliance with sealed 3D printers that produce sterile, patient-matched scaffolds from approved materials inside a controlled chamber.
While scaffold-guided regeneration is still in early clinical stages, the underlying digital workflow will feel familiar to many dental technicians. Designing a patient-specific scaffold draws on the same core skills labs already use for surgical guides and implant planning.
So, technicians who build experience in scaffold design principles—such as mapping defects, selecting regenerative materials, and planning around future prosthetics—will be well positioned as this field expands. In the future, labs may not only design the restoration but help shape the scaffold that makes it possible
What’s next for dental labs
While routine, large-scale clinical adoption will depend on further trials, regulatory approval, and standardised manufacturing, dental laboratories are already well-positioned to contribute to scaffold design with many of the core tools that will be needed, including intraoral scanning, CBCT integration, and CAD/CAM software already in daily use.
High compliance standards, on the other hand, may be a barrier for dental labs keen to take on full-scale fabrication of the scaffolds. As scaffolds are implanted into living tissue, higher compliance standards are triggered than those required for crowns or guides. GMP certification, validated sterilisation processes, and ISO-aligned quality systems are all necessary.
However, Professor Ivanovski sees a possible solution in future self-contained manufacturing units designed to simplify compliance with sealed 3D printers that produce sterile, patient-matched scaffolds from approved materials inside a controlled chamber.
While scaffold-guided regeneration is still in early clinical stages, the underlying digital workflow will feel familiar to many dental technicians. Designing a patient-specific scaffold draws on the same core skills labs already use for surgical guides and implant planning.
So, technicians who build experience in scaffold design principles—such as mapping defects, selecting regenerative materials, and planning around future prosthetics—will be well positioned as this field expands. In the future, labs may not only design the restoration but help shape the scaffold that makes it possible.
