Bioactive Magnetic Materials in Bone Tissue Engineering: A Review of Recent Findings in CaP-Based Particles and 3D-Printed Scaffolds

Diverse applications of nanoparticles (NP) have been revolutionary for various industrial sectors worldwide. In particular, magnetic nanoparticles (MNP) have gained great interest because of their applications in specialized medical areas. This review starts with a brief overview of the magnetic behavior of MNP and a short description of their most used synthesis methods. The second part is dedicated to the MNP applications in tissue engineering, emphasizing the calcium phosphate-based NP with intrinsic magnetic properties, recently highlighted in the literature as alternative and viable solutions for bone regeneration. The challenges associated with the controversial long-term toxicity effects of MNP can be overcome using this new generation of multifunctional bone-like magnetic materials. Furthermore, the influence of magnetic field parameters, such as modality of application, intensity, and spatial distribution, on the biological behavior of magnetic materials, especially for bone repair, is shown. The last part of the review presents the current state of the art regarding the development of magnetic biomaterials for additive manufacturing (AM), aiming to fabricate scaffolds by AM technologies, focusing on bone tissue engineering applications.