  Modern tissue engineering strategies combine living cells and scaffold
materials to develop biological substitutes that can restore tissue functions.
Both natural and synthetic materials have been fabricated for transplantation
of stem cells and their specific differentiation into muscles, bones and
cartilages. One of the key objectives for bone regeneration therapy to be
successful is to direct stem cells' proliferation and to accelerate their
differentiation in a controlled manner through the use of growth factors and
osteogenic inducers. Here we show that graphene provides a promising
biocompatible scaffold that does not hamper the proliferation of human
mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) and accelerates their specific differentiation
into bone cells. The differentiation rate is comparable to the one achieved
with common growth factors, demonstrating graphene's potential for stem cell
research.
