Artificial Intelligence Aided Design of Tissue Engineering Scaffolds Employing Virtual Tomography and 3D Convolutional Neural Networks

Abstract

Design requirements for different mechanical metamaterials, porous constructions and lattice structures, employed as tissue engineering scaffolds, lead to multi-objective optimizations, due to the complex mechanical features of the biological tissues and structures they should mimic. In some cases, the use of conventional design and simulation methods for designing such tissue engineering scaffolds cannot be applied because of geometrical complexity, manufacturing defects or large aspect ratios leading to numerical mismatches. Artificial intelligence (AI) in general, and machine learning (ML) methods in particular, are already finding applications in tissue engineering and they can prove transformative resources for supporting designers in the field of regenerative medicine. In this study, the use of 3D convolutional neural networks (3D CNNs), trained using digital tomographies obtained from the CAD models, is validated as a powerful resource for predicting the mechanical properties of innovative scaffolds. The presented AI-aided or ML-aided design strategy is believed as an innovative approach in area of tissue engineering scaffolds, and of mechanical metamaterials in general. This strategy may lead to several applications beyond the tissue engineering field, as we analyze in the discussion and future proposals sections of the research study.