Interactions between tissues, cells, and biomaterials: an advanced evaluation by synchrotron radiation-based highresolution tomography.

This chapter discusses the most recent findings, obtained with the support of synchrotron radiation-based microtomography, in terms of interactions between tissues, cells and biomaterials. Synchrotron imaging has proven to be a fundamental characterization tool for understanding the mechanism of biological behavior of biomaterials proposed as a tissue substitute. Moreover, through this same technique it has been possible to investigate the growth kinetics of the regenerated tissues in different vitro and in-vivo environments. Tissue regeneration, biomaterial resorption and neo-vascularization were evaluated by synchrotron radiation microtomography and holotomography at different times from grafting. These innovative techniques allowed not only the visualization and quantification of regenerated tissues, but showed also the eventual presence and distribution of the neo-vascularization. This is of paramount importance and demonstrates that X-Ray phase tomography and holotomography appear to be important ways to investigate the cross talk between tissues, cells and biomaterials.