The meeting between representatives of the bone regeneration research centres involved in the project took place across 7 and 8 June, with a view to analysing how Project Maxibone was progressing. The initiative, funded by the European Commission and coordinated by the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (Inserm), has already launched the clinical studies phase in some of the participating centres, including the UIC Barcelona Faculty of Dentistry.

Project Maxibone’s main objective is to regenerate maxillary bone using culture expanded autologous bone marrow stem cells and synthetic biomaterials. The Project has twelve partners from five European countries (Norway, Spain, France, Denmark and Germany), including universities, research laboratories, university hospitals, cell therapy units and biomaterials and dental implant companies. The team from UIC Barcelona comprises Dr Federico Hernández Alfaro, Dr Jordi Caballé and Dr Maria Giralt from the Faculty of Dentistry, one of two Spanish centres participating in the project.

The randomised controlled clinical trial of 150 patients will compare the safety and efficacy of autologous cultured stem cells and calcium phosphate biomaterials with autologous bone grafting to reconstruct alveolar bone augmentation prior to dental implants. Efficient monitoring of the trial will allow a clinical database to be created that will evaluate the safety, efficiency and cost of the Project.