Biomaterials and implant medical devices make up an industry with yearly
revenues greater than $100 billion and have an impressive record of saving
lives and improving the quality of life for millions. However, today¹s
biocompatible biomaterials are simply walled off from the body as foreign
objects. This can impede performance and degrade outcomes in many
applications. What strategies might be used to improve healing? Nature
routinely heals wounds, so copying nature¹s approaches seems appropriate.
Normal healing is a biologically specific process. Thus, we must turn on
specific reactions. In this lecture, surface modification approaches for
bioengineering the interface of medical devices will be presented. Can we,
as engineers, control interfacial biologic reactions to inhibit non-specific
adsorption and turn on specific reactions? An RF-plasma-deposited thin
poly(ethylene glycol)-like layer can prevent non-specific protein
adsorption. Specificity can be conferred by immobilizing key proteins
involved in healing (e.g. osteopontin), attracting to the implant surface
healing molecules, inhibiting proteins that trigger the foreign body
reaction (e.g. thrombospondin 2), or sending chemical signals important for
healing. Approaches aimed toward all four strategies will be described.