The use of medications, surgical procedures and bone grafts are the most commonly used solutions for the treatment of bone defects. Grafts are the most used method for the treatment of this type of defects nowadays, however this solution presents a series of complications that has driven the search for new and more effective solutions for the treatment of bone defects. Advances in the area of tissue engineering have allowed the fabrication of scaffolds with physical and chemical properties that mimic those of natural bone and allow bone regeneration. To this end, the need to explore new materials to improve the mechanical and biological properties of scaffolds has increased. For example, hydroxyapatite is a material commonly used for applications in bone tissue regeneration because it is part of the mineral component of bone, which makes this material characterized by having properties similar to this tissue. On the other hand, it has been found that the use of nanomaterials, such as carbon dots, for the fabrication of scaffolds induces changes in their physicochemical properties that can provide improvements in the interactions with cells and tissues, by promoting cell differentiation and proliferation of bone cells and improving mechanical properties such as bending and torsional strength. This work proposes the synthesis of carbon dots embedded in hydroxyapatite nanoparticles and the preliminary evaluation of their cytotoxicity by MTT assay in order to perform an initial evaluation of their potential for the treatment of bone defects. The aim is to initiate a research line where the analysis of the impact on the bioactive properties of multiscale scaffolds with the addition of carbon dots embedded in hydroxyapatite nanoparticles is performed, in order to evaluate the viability of this type of biomaterials for applications in bone tissue regeneration.
