Digital Applications in Dental and Craniofacial Tissue Engineering

Over the last decades, the fields of tissue engineering (TE) and regenerative medicine/dentistry (RM/D) have gathered a lot of research attention, with many milestones already being achieved. Many dental and craniofacial tissues have been engineered in vitro, while regenerative techniques are being evolved in the clinical stage. The research of TERM/D is highly dependent on the digital world. The signals of the subcellular level are being translated into the humanly interpreted language, while the desired manipulations are accordingly translated into subcellular messages. Human-tissue communication is mainly achieved via digital technologies. In this chapter, the main methods of digitalizing the human physiology are being reviewed; from basic laboratory techniques on extracting and translating biological data to advanced translational models (biosensors, high-throughput systems, lab/organ-on-chip, etc.). In silico tissue engineering and digital scaffold manufacturing, through finite element analysis (FEA) and computer-aided design (CAD) are described. The main biofabrication techniques (e.g., bioprinting) and advances on the dental and craniofacial tissues are highlighted. Finally, the ultimate goal of the development of digital twins on TE, and the future perspectives of the role of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) on designing, predicting, and optimizing the experimental TEM/D procedures are discussed.