About the Authors

Frederic Oprenyeszk

Affiliation Bone and Cartilage Research Unit, Arthropôle Liege, University of Liege, Liege, Belgium

Christelle Sanchez

Affiliation Bone and Cartilage Research Unit, Arthropôle Liege, University of Liege, Liege, Belgium

Jean-Emile Dubuc

Affiliation Orthopaedic Department, Cliniques Universitaires St Luc, Brussels, Belgium

Véronique Maquet

Affiliation KitoZyme SA, Parc industriel des Haut-Sarts, Herstal, Belgium

Catherine Henrist

Affiliation Group of Research in Energy and Environment from Materials and Center for Applied Technology in Microscopy, University of Liege, Liege, Belgium

Philippe Compère

Affiliation Laboratory of Functional and Evolutive Morphology, Department of Environmental Sciences and Management, University of Liege, Liege, Belgium

Yves Henrotin

yhenrotin@ulg.ac.be

Current Address: Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Department, Princess Paola Hospital, Marche-en-Famenne, Belgium

Affiliation Bone and Cartilage Research Unit, Arthropôle Liege, University of Liege, Liege, Belgium

Competing Interests

YH is the founder and chairman of Artialis SA and Synolyne SA, two spin-off companies of the University of Liège. He is also an advisor for some pharmaceutical companies including BioIberica, Laboratoires Expanscience, Flexxion, Tilman SA and Nestle. VM is an employee of KitoZyme SA, the provider of chitosan and inventor of the patent: "Cell cultivation in chitosan alginate hydrogel beads WO2011104131" which describes the scaffold described in this paper. This does not alter the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: FO CS VM YH. Performed the experiments: FO CS PC CH. Analyzed the data: FO CS JED VM CH PC YH. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: CS JED VM CH PC. Wrote the paper: FO YH. Critical revision of the article for important intellectual content: FO CS JED VM CH PC YH. Statistical expertise: FO YH.