ChE’s Jungwoo Lee and Colleagues Obtain U.S. Patent for “Demineralized Bone Paper”

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Associate Professor Jungwoo Lee of the UMass Amherst Chemical Engineering (ChE) Department and four research colleagues have received a U.S. patent for their invention called “Demineralized Bone Paper” (DBP), which they fabricate from ultra-thin slices of demineralized compact bone. The pioneering invention entails three-dimensional, bone-tissue grafts produced from stacked DBP, methods for treating patients using those tissue grafts, and assay systems based on culturing bone-promoting cells on DBP. See US20220152274A1 - Demineralized bone paper - Google Patents.

Lee, who is also the ChE departmental honors coordinator, an adjunct in the Biomedical Engineering Department, and an affiliated faculty member in Molecular and Cellular Biology Gradaute Program, shares the patent with his four-person research team. That team consists of: Jaehyuck Shim of the UMass Chan Medical School; Ryan Carpenter, who earned his Ph.D. in 2020 under Lee and is currently a senior scientist in Stellular Bio; Yongkuk Park, who earned his Ph.D. in 2022 under Lee and is currently a postdoc fellow in Harvard Medical School; and Jun-Goo Kwak, who earned his Ph.D. in 2024 under Lee and currently works in Vial Health Technology.

The backstory of the trailblazing invention is that demineralized bone matrix has been utilized successfully for clinical-bone-tissue regeneration and in vitro bone-tissue engineering while also stimulating the formation of bone. But, according to Lee and his team, “The potential of the demineralized bone matrix for in vitro bone-tissue modeling has not been fully exploited.” 

To meet this challenge, the researchers processed demineralized compact bone into thin sections having a standardized thickness and surface area, and named these sections “Demineralized Bone Paper.” 

Lee explains that DBP was developed to replicate the natural, layer-by-layer process of lamellar bone formation by osteoblasts. This process begins with the synthesis of a thin, structurally organized collagen matrix, followed by the gradual deposition of hydroxyapatite minerals. The intermediate state, a structurally intact but unmineralized collagen matrix, is known as the osteoid. 

DBP is created by selectively removing minerals from compact bone, which is composed of lamellar structures, and sectioning it to a thickness comparable to that of the osteoid (5-25 µm). DBP preserves intrinsic bone-matrix complexities, such as the hierarchical assembly of collagen fibers, and closely resembles the osteoid state. 

DBP is also semi-transparent for optical imaging, mechanically durable for reliable experimental handling, and adheres stably to tissue-culture plastic via electrostatic interactions. 

Lee and his colleagues say that these properties allowed them to create “standardized, functional, and analytical bone-tissue models for preclinical testings. In addition, DBP allowed an additive manufacturing of lamellar structural 3D bone tissues via layering, rolling, and folding osteoblasts and bone-marrow, stromal-cell, pre-seeded multiple DBPs.” 

The technical innovation of DBP has been formally recognized by the Innovative Molecular Analysis Technology (IMAT) program of the National Cancer Institute. IMAT supports early-stage, high-impact technologies that advance cancer research by enabling deeper understanding of cancer biology. Lee currently leads a three-year IMAT-funded project titled “Develop and validate demineralized bone paper-based human bone metabolic and senolytic assays” with a total award of $1,186,886. 

The established assays are expected to have significance in identifying bone-metastasis-preventing drug development and pharmacological strategies. 

Lee also co-founded the spinoff company MetaBone with Dr. Patrick Ryan, who earned his Ph.D. in 2025 under Lee, to translate DBP-based bone organoids into a platform for preclinical drug testing. This effort aligns with the recently enacted U.S. Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act 2.0., which promotes the use of human organoid and microphysiological system-based models as alternatives to animal testing. 

Ryan, currently chief executive officer of MetaBone, states that “The DBP-based bone organoid is one of the most advanced bone models available and holds great promise for significantly enhancing the predictive power of preclinical testing. This will significantly reduce the cost and time for new drug development. We envision our organoid platform becoming the gold standard for bone-targeted drug and toxicity screening. Our advanced human-bone organoids are also expected to serve as a powerful tool for identifying new druggable targets to address bone aging and bone metastasis.”

MetaBone has received early recognition through the Lever Western Mass Health Tech Challenge and the Institute for Applied Life Sciences Translational Seed Award. 

Lee heads the Lee Research Group, an interdisciplinary research team which delivers groundbreaking platform technologies that can advance basic biomedical research, solve various medical problems, and ultimately improve patient care. As Lee says, “We design and manufacture a broad range of materials to construct standardized, functional, human-tissue models and apply multi-dimensional imaging modalities to quantitatively capture complex, dynamic, biological processes.”