PHOENIX Project Presented at TERMIS EU 2025 Congress
Date: 19–23 May 2025
Location: Freiburg, Germany
Event: TERMIS EU Congress 2025
The European Chapter Meeting of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS-EU) celebrated its 2025 edition from 19–23 May in Freiburg im Breisgau. Under the theme “Shaping the Future by Connecting Scientific Diversity,” the congress brought together over a thousand researchers, clinicians, and industry leaders to foster interdisciplinary collaboration and accelerate translational advances in regenerative medicine.
The main topics included biofabrication and 3D bioprinting, advanced biomaterials and smart polymers, cell and gene therapies, in vitro and in vivo models such as organoids and organ-on-chip systems, nanomaterials and drug delivery platforms, engineering of biological interfaces and cellular microenvironments, clinical applications in musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, neural, and skin tissues, as well as regulatory affairs, commercialization, and personalized medicine.
At this year’s congress, Luciano Riso from the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) presented a poster on the PHOENIX project’s ongoing research into scaffold-based strategies for functional cartilage tissue mimicking. The poster, titled “Tuning Cryogel Pore Orientation for Mimicking Cartilage Architecture,” addressed a key challenge in cartilage repair: replicating the native tissue’s complex zonal structure, including gradients in cell organization, collagen fiber alignment, and mechanical properties.
Traditional hydrogels often fall short due to limited control over internal pore orientation and architecture. To overcome these limitations, the team proposed a biomimetic approach using tunable cryogels fabricated from gelatin and carboxymethyl cellulose, crosslinked with adipic acid dihydrazide (AAD) and EDC. By subjecting the materials to either isotropic or anisotropic freezing, it was possible to control the orientation of ice crystal formation and modulate pore alignment within the scaffold.
The presentation highlighted several key findings:
- Excellent chondrocyte adhesion and viability supported by both scaffold types.
- Successful fabrication of cryogels with distinct and reproducible pore architectures, confirmed via SEM and confocal microscopy.
- Vertically aligned pores observed in anisotropically frozen cryogels, compared to the randomly oriented structure of isotropic samples.
- Quantified pore size demonstrating suitable porosity (~56.6%) for cartilage applications and high reproducibility across batches.
These findings indicate that directional cryogel fabrication could be a viable strategy for mimicking the zonal architecture of native cartilage, thereby enhancing the potential for more effective and biomimetic tissue regeneration.
Cosimo Loffreda, from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University Hospital Basel (UNIBAS), presented a poster titled “Optimization of chondrocyte expansion: comparative analysis of αMEM and high-glucose DMEM with TGF-β1, BMP-2, and FGF-2 supplementation.” The study aimed to improve in vitro conditions for primary human chondrocyte expansion, addressing the issue of dedifferentiation during monolayer culture. Chondrocytes isolated from cartilage waste material were cultured over a 7-day period using two different base media with regular growth factor supplementation.
Results showed that αMEM significantly enhanced proliferation and GAG deposition compared to DMEM, while immunofluorescence staining suggested better preservation of the chondrogenic phenotype with minimal hypertrophic markers. These findings are expected to support the development of optimized protocols for cartilage tissue engineering and preconditioning strategies for future 3D applications.
