From repairing damaged tissues to developing better implants, many medical developments depend on materials that can mimic the complex properties of human tissue. Meta-biomaterials are among the most promising candidates. By tailoring their geometry, researchers can create materials with properties similar to those of natural tissues. But there is a catch: changing one property often changes several others at the same time. TU Delft scientists have now developed a method to decouple these properties. Their work, published in Nature Communications , helps to understand how individual material properties influence cell behaviour and could accelerate the development of next-generation biomaterials.
Meta-biomaterials are engineered materials whose properties are determined not by their chemical composition, but by their internal architecture. This allows researchers to design structures with carefully tuned mechanical, morphological and mass-transport properties. Such control is particularly valuable in biomedical engineering, where materials need to do more than simply replace damaged tissue. They must also interact with cells and actively support tissue regeneration.
Everything is connected
However, meta-biomaterials pose a fundamental challenge. "When we change one property, we usually end up changing several others as well," explains associate professor Mohammad J. Mirzaali. This is due to inherent, theoretically grounded couplings between these properties, which "make it very difficult to determine which property is actually responsible for a specific biological or mechanical response."
For example, increasing the stiffness of a scaffold usually requires altering its pore size, permeability, or surface area. If cells subsequently behave differently, researchers cannot easily identify which of those changes triggered the response. Without being able to isolate individual properties, researchers are often comparing materials that differ in many ways simultaneously.
Searching a vast design space
To address this challenge, PhD candidate Ebrahim Yarali, under the supervision of Mirzaali, Angelo Accardo and Amir A. Zadpoor, developed a computational framework capable of separating properties that are normally intertwined. They explored an enormous design space using nearly 45,000 computer simulations. Combining different methods, they searched for architectures in which specific properties could be varied while others remained as unchanged as possible.
The team succeeded in independently tuning properties such as relative density and Poisson's ratio, a measure of how a material deforms when stretched or compressed, while keeping other characteristics nearly constant.
The work did not remain confined to simulations. To validate their predictions, the researchers manufactured several of the optimised designs using advanced 3D printing technologies. “We experimentally measured properties including stiffness, Poisson's ratio and permeability,” says Yarali. “The results closely matched the computational predictions, demonstrating that the framework can reliably generate materials with independently tuneable properties.”
Accelerating biomaterials research
“This framework provides a much-needed research tool that could help answer some of the most fundamental questions in biomaterials science,” says Zadpoor. By creating structures that differ in only a single property, scientists can systematically investigate how characteristics such as stiffness, density or deformation behaviour affect cell attachment, growth and differentiation. Understanding these relationships is essential for developing materials that can guide tissue formation and improve healing. The team hopes the method will help identify which material properties matter most for specific biological functions, enabling more targeted design of future biomaterials.
Nature Communications
Experimental study
Human tissue samples
Decoupling mechanical and morphometric properties in meta-biomaterials
8-Sep-2026