Publication of Tchadjui De Tialeu Eric - student biomedical engineering in radioelectronic university of Kharkov (Ukraine), Yashkov I.O. - associate professor in radioelectronic university of Kharkov (Ukraine).

Area of using biocompatible material

The article examined the biocompatible material (sometimes shortened to biomaterial) as a synthetic or natural material used to replace part of a living system or to function in intimate contact with living tissue. Biocompatible materials are intended to interface with biological systems to evaluate, treat, augment or replace any tissue, organ or function of the body. Biomaterials are usually non-viable, but may also be viable. A biocompatible material is different from a biological material such as bone that is produced by a biological system. Artificial hips, vascular stents, artificial pacemakers, and catheters are all made from different biomaterials and comprise different medical devices.

An inventory of the most commonly used biomaterials, when this programme started showed that the chosen materials were, in fact, still rather conventional materials, which were originally developed for other applications than biological and medical ones. This situation has changed but only slowly. There exist today "dedicated" biomaterials that have been specifically and intentionally developed for clinical or other applications. A pronounced development over the time of this programme, is that the concept of biomaterials has diversified, today including materials for medical implants (much more dominant ten years ago), biosensors and biochips (rapidly growing), and scaffolds for tissue engineering (also growing). One of the main goals of biomaterials research is to develop a new generation of functional biomaterials, which are designed to produce a biological response that is optimal for the intended application. From a scientific point of view, the biomaterials field is still relatively immature.

Biomaterials research is extremely multidisciplinary, including disciplines such as the clinical sciences, laboratory medicine, anatomy, immunology, cell biology, molecular biology, mechanical engineering, materials science, chemistry, and physics. The development of a deeper understanding of the mechanisms that are responsible for the complicated interaction between biological tissue and artificial materials, have made the biomaterials research area come closer to a number of applications that earlier were considered as completely separate, like e.g. electronics and sensors.

Biomaterials research at the basic level includes the broad interdisciplinary area where properties and processes at interfaces between synthetic materials and biological environments are investigated and biofunctional surfaces are fabricated. Examples are medical implants in the human body, biosensors and biochips for diagnostics, tissue engineering, bioelectronics, artificial photosynthesis, and biomimetic materials. They are areas of varying maturity, together constituting a strong driving force for the current rapid development of this field. Another driving force is the purely scientific challenges and opportunities to explore the mutual interaction between biological components and surfaces. Model systems range from the unique water structures at solid surfaces and water shells around proteins and biomembranes, via amino and nucleic acids, proteins, DNA, phospholipid membranes, to cells and living tissue at surfaces.

At one end of the spectrum the scientific challenge is to map out the structures, bonding, dynamics and kinetics of bimolecular at surfaces in a similar way as has been done for simple molecules during the past three decades in Surface Science. At the other end of the complexity spectrum one addresses how biofunctional surfaces participate in and can be designed to constructively participate in the total communication system of cells and tissue, including clinical therapies and diagnostics.

A biocompatible material is different from a biological material such as bone that is produced by a biological system. Artificial hips, vascular stents, artificial pacemakers, and catheters are all made from different biomaterials and comprise different medical devices.

Biomimetic materials are not made by living organisms but have compositions and properties similar to those made by living organisms. The calcium hydroxyl apatite coating found on many artificial hips is used as a bone replacement that allows for easier attachment of the implant to the living bone.

Surface functionalization may provide a way to transform a bio-inert material into a biomimetic or even bioactive material by coupling of protein layers to the surface, or coating the surface with self-assembling peptide scaffolds to lend bioactivity and/or cell attachment 3-D matrix.

In the end of this work it’s important to notify the different approaches to functionalization of biomaterials exist. Plasma processing has been successfully applied to chemically inert materials like polymers or silicon to graft various functional groups to the surface of the implant. Polyanhydrides are polymers successfully used as drug delivery materials. Care should be exercised in defining a biomaterial as biocompatible, since it is application specific. A biomaterial that is biocompatible or suitable for one application may not be biocompatible in another.

Literature

1. Journals Ranked by Impact: Engineering, Biomedical. "2010 Journal Citation Reports". Web of Science (Social Sciences ed.) (Thomson Reuters). 2011.

2. Journals Ranked by Impact: Materials Science, Biomaterials. "2010 Journal Citation Reports". Web of Science (Social Sciences ed.) (Thomson Reuters). 2011.

3. Journals Acta Biomaterialia Published on behalf of Acta Materialia, Inc.

Editor-in-Chief: Professor W. R. Wagner.2012.