Why we need semisolid decalcification system in bone tissue engineering? A story begins with honeycomb

SummaryThe repair of large segmental bone defects remains a tough problem disturbing surgeons and researchers. Bone tissue engineering brings some new sight in this field. However, it has not been effectively applied in clinics, for the reason that the involved mechanism is not well understood. Thus, we need to know the osteogenesis process of the tissue-engineered bone including distribution, proliferation and interaction among seed cells pre-inoculated in biomaterials as well as the function of surrounding tissues. As a matter of fact, the tissue-engineered bone or the biomaterials are solid and opaque, which makes the study difficult. Here, inspired by the structure of honeycomb and amber, we hypothesize a semisolid decalcification protocol to solve this problem.