Advancement in harnessing fish waste for cutting-edge hydroxyapatite in bone regeneration

Recent attention towards valorizing waste biological materials for tissue engineering applications has introduced numerous biomaterials. In the present review, the utilization of bony fish wastes as a promising resource of hydroxyapatite (HA) has been compiled for bone tissue engineering. The cascade precursor and bioactive materials present that can activate multiple signaling pathways to regulate osteogenic genes and other bone markers for osteogenesis are emphasized. This comprehensive study also explores several cost-effective and eco-friendly processes and manufacturing techniques for HA from fish waste and its capability to promote osseointegration, osteoconduction, and osteoinduction through molecular mechanisms. This review work exclusively explores the approaches to address the challenges in hydroxyapatite production and modulating their properties. To address this, compositing HA with other ceramics/polymers, surface modification, and doping with rare earth elements to improve, are specifically summarized in relevance to improving load-bearing capacity and its biocompatibility in-vitro and in-vivo. Further study in this direction is inevitable from scaling up point of view from bench side to bedside.