Additive Manufacturing as the Enabler of the Dual-Mode Biomimetic Design: Unlocking Mechanobiological Signalling for Bone Regeneration

Large bone defects remain a clinical challenge because conventional implants fail to restore the coupled mechanical and fluiddriven signals essential for bone healing. Without natural strain transfer and medullary fluid flow, osteocyte signalling and bone remodelling are disrupted, leading to unpredictable outcomes. This lecture presents the DualMode biomimetic approach, a unified design strategy that reinstates both Strain Shaping (Mode I) and Medullary Pumping (Mode II) to unlock the therapeutic potential of cellular mechanobiology.

Additive manufacturing is the key enabler. Advanced AM techniques allow precise fabrication of complex porous architectures with sitespecific stiffness, permeability, and wall shear stress distributions—features impossible to achieve with conventional methods. By transforming scaffold design from empirical iteration to predictive, testable rules, AM bridges the gap between mechanobiological theory and clinical practice.

The lecture will demonstrate how this synergy between biomanufacturing and mechanobiology can deliver the next generation of durable, biointegrative bone implants.

Antonio Apicella, Professor Materials Science and Technology, University of Campania (Italy)

As Chemical and Materials Engineer he run advanced researches in collaborations with foreign universities. He has played key roles in international education as director of the Bachelor and Master schools of Industrial design and international research programmes as founder of the Advanced Materials Lab. These activities underpin foundational contributions to material science, biomechanics, composite processing, mechanobiology, additive manufacturing, clinical application and technology transfer to industrial applications such as: Pioneering 3D finite element analysis (FEA) in dental and orofacial biomechanics (since 1998), Foundational work on diffusion in polymer for drug delivery (since 1979), Technology transfer ability, i.e.: process for aerospace composites (1989, Boeing 767) and "evolutionary multi-physic design" (2001, Boeing 787), the world's first 3D-printed orthopaedic implant to obtain CE Mark certification (2007, Adler Ortho S.p.A).