Table 1.

Sample treatment scheme. “Ti ref” is our reference material which is a conventionally manufactured and surface-treated titanium material used in the clinic.⁵ A direct comparison of the effects of Ti ref and our SLM produced nickel–titanium (“NiTi”) on MSC behavior is nontrivial due to a number of variables: (1) chemistry of the bulk materials, (2) the effect of the SLM manufacturing process, and (3) surface topography. Therefore, titanium disks produced by the SLM process were also fabricated (“Ti”). To account for the surface treatment of Ti ref, two groups of SLM produced disks were also surface treated (“Ti ST” and “NiTi ST”) to obtain similar surface topographies.

	Ti ref	Ti	Ti ST	NiTi	NiTi ST
SLM		✓	✓	✓	✓
Sandblasting	✓		✓
Etching	✓		✓		✓

MSC: mesenchymal stromal cells; SLM: selective laser melting.