Preparation of freestanding hydroxyapatite membranes with excellent biocompatibility and flexibility

Hydroxyapatite (HAp) is one of the most widely used materials for tissue culture scaffolding in regenerative medicine. To apply HAp as a suitable material for tissue culture scaffolding, we have developed freestanding HAp membranes that can be directly transplanted as is into a diseased site after tissue culturing. These freestanding HAp membranes are highly biocompatible, provide early cell proliferation and differentiation, and their flexibility allows some degree of configuration to the target site. This tissue culture scaffold is ideal from the standpoint of harvesting tissue and directly transplanting it to the diseased site. (C) 2008 The Japan Society of Applied Physics.