Turning Shells into Biocompatible Scaffolds for Bone Regeneration.

Bone tissue engineering (BTE) provides an alternative for addressing bone defects by integrating cells, a scaffold, and bioactive growth factors to stimulate tissue regeneration and repair, resulting in effective bioengineered tissue. This study focuses on repurposing chitosan from blue swimming crab () shell waste as a composite scaffold combined with HAP and COL I to improve biocompatibility, porosity, swelling, and mechanical properties. The composite scaffold demonstrated nearly 60% porosity with diameters ranging from 100-200 μm with an interconnected network that structurally mimics the extracellular matrix.