Bone is a mineralized connective tissue, with a unique trauma healing potential. However, the replacement or regeneration of lost bone is not always successful and can become more complex the larger the bone defect. Therefore, even with this healing property, biomaterials/scaffolds are required in many situations. Several bone diseases, such as osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, malignant osteolysis, osteomyelitis, and their related orthopedic procedures (such as pseudo-arthrosis chirurgical treatment, hip or knee arthroplasty, arthrodesis, and tumor removal) commonly require biomaterials/scaffolds to augment bone repair and regeneration. To date, numerous preclinical and clinical studies have explored different types of biomaterials (metallic, polymeric, ceramic, or composites) loaded with cells (mainly mesenchymal stem cell), biological cues (such as growth factors, platelet lysates, hormones, and phytohormones) or with different types of drugs, mainly evaluating their osteoconductive and osteoinductive properties to regenerate damaged bone tissue.

However, optimum tissue regeneration performance of bone biomaterials/scaffolds is also dependent on their biomechanical behavior. In fact, the biomechanical properties of biomaterials/scaffolds that are employed in bone tissue engineering and/or bone substitution have been shown to significantly influence the cellular response and bone tissue regeneration rate. Biomaterials/scaffolds with unsatisfactory biomechanical properties are not able to provide enough mechanical support for bone tissue regeneration in load-bearing applications, while overly stiff biomaterials could prevent bone tissue regeneration through the stress-shielding phenomenon. Various methodologies have therefore been set up to evaluate and characterize the biomechanical properties of biomaterials/scaffolds used for bone tissue regeneration. As part of this evaluation, one of the most important questions is “what are the desired biomechanical properties?” The simplest answer would be “the biomechanical properties of the native tissue”. Although this answer provides a good starting point, it should be noted that the ultimate biomechanical properties of the native tissue are not necessarily the ones that optimize the tissue regeneration performance of scaffolds in vivo. Due to an increasingly aging population and the associated increased risk of bone diseases, there is currently a significant interest in the medical community to have “biomechanical competent” biomaterials/scaffolds for bone tissue regeneration.

This special issue aims to collect original research articles and reviews on recent preclinical and clinical findings regarding biomechanical properties of biomaterials/scaffolds for bone (cortical and cancellous) tissue regeneration in the field of orthopedics.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Preclinical (in vitro and in vivo) evaluation of biomechanical properties of biomaterials/scaffolds in bone tissue regeneration
• Biomechanical characteristics of biomaterials/scaffolds for the repair of osteochondral defects
• Biomechanical characteristics of bone substitutes
• Biomechanical properties of custom-made devices
• Biomechanical effects of using different drugs (antibiotic, antitumoral, and antiresorptive) in biomaterials/scaffolds
• Mechanical properties and hierarchical structures of well-studied and newly-studied biomimetic and bioinspired materials in bone tissue regeneration
• Computational biomechanical aspects of biomaterials/scaffolds in bone tissue regeneration
• Biomechanics and in silico medicine
• Biomechanical, histological, histomorphometric, and microtomographic studies of bone regeneration after a biomaterial/scaffold implant