Biomaterials engineering

The day when a truly bionic man or woman can be produced by biomaterials engineers has still not been reached. If researchers have discovered anything at all in their work on artificial skin, blood vessels, bone, and blood, it is that living systems are far more complex and delicate than many scientists had believed, and efforts to replicate them with the best-known biological, chemical, and physical techniques still fall far short of the perfection obtained by nature itself. Still, impressive strides have been made in only a few decades, and one can be optimistic that another few decades from now will see the ready availability of synthetic skin, blood, and bone, along with many other synthetic body parts and materials. 

Tissue engineering is a recent discipline that is closely related to cell therapy, but combines knowledge of molecular and cell biology with traditional concepts from biomaterials engineering, bioreactors, biomechanics, and controlled drug release, aiming at the development of new tissues. 

In recent years ordered mesoporous materials have attracted great attention [1] for their interesting property [2] and these materials have numerous potential applications in many fields such as separation, catalysis, and biomaterial engineering [3,4]. Much interest is being focused on the preparation of transition-metal oxides using several templating pathways besides silica-based materials. 

Li J (2004) Polymeric hydrogels. In Teoh SH (ed) Biomaterials engineering and processing series, vol. 1. Engineering materials for biomedical applications. World Scientific, New Jersey... 

Biomaterials Engineering Center Wayne State University Detroit, Michigan... 

Department of Biotechnology and The Biomaterial Engineering Research Center The Catholic University of Korea Bucheon, South Korea... 

Blazewicz S (2006) Non-metalic multifunctional composites in biomaterials engineering. In Nadolny AJ (ed) Biomaterials in regenerative medicine. Polish Academy of Sciences, Warszawa... 

Ratner BD (1988) The surface characterization of biomedical materials. In Ratner BD (ed) Progress in biomaterials engineering, vol 6. Elsevier, Amsterdam, p 13 Vidrine DW (1982) Photoacoustic Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy of solids and liquids. In Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy Fries T (1994) Deutscher Verband fiir Materialprufung, p 127 Sacher E (1988) The determination of the surface tensions of solid films. In Ratner BD (ed) Progress in biomaterials engineering, vol 6 Surface characterization of biomaterials. Elsevier, Amsterdam, p 53 Owens DK, Wendt RC (1969) J Appl Polym Sci 13 1741... 

Many synthetic polymers are soluble only in organic (nonpolar) solvents. However, concern for sustainable development provides a strong interest in environment-friendly processes and formulations that exploit the extensive properties of aqueous solutions of water-soluble polymers. Recently, growing research in the domain of water-soluble polymers and their supramolecular assemblies has been strongly motivated by the applications in the emerging domains of biomaterial engineering and nanomedicine. 

Today, the environmental pollution is becoming a topic of common concern. In order to reduce the pollution and to improve the quality of our life, scientists start to pay more and more attention to research environmentally safe products. Carbohydrates including monosaccharides, cyclodextrins and polysaccharides (an example of each is given in Fig. 1) are easily obtained from biomass. Not only do these carbohydrates have a good hydrophilicity due to their hydrojyl groups, but also they are biocompatible, thus materials synthesized from these bio-sourced compounds have been attracting a lot of interest in biomaterial engineering. 

Driessens EC.M.,BoltongM.G.,Khairoun L, De Maeyer E.A.P., Ginebra M.P., Wenz R., PlaneUfA., and Verbeeck R.M.H. Applied aspects of calcium phosphate bone cement application. In Wise D.L., Trantolo D.J., Lewandrowski K.U., Gresser M.V., and Yaszemski M.J. (Eds). Biomaterials Engineering and Devices. Human Applications. Volume 2. Humana Press, New Jersey, Totowa. 2000, pp. 253-260. 

Table 2. Applications and examples of plasma treatment in biomaterials engineering.

From the biomaterials engineering viewpoint, human bone tissue is a composite comprized of a Col matrix reinforced with 40-50 vol% apatite crystals. The apatite crystals are plate-like and elongated with a c-axis-preferred orientation in the direction of principal stress, such as the longitudinal anatomical axis of long bones. It follows that bone tissue exhibits anisotropic mechanical properties. The elastic... 

Lu, H. D., Wheeldon, 1. R., and Banta, S. 2010. Catalytic biomaterials Engineering organophosphate hydrolase to form seU-assembUng enzymatic hydrogels. Protein Eng Des Sel, 23 559-66. 

Pardo-Yissar V, Katz E, Willner I, Kotylar AB, Sanders C, Lill H. Biomaterial engineered electrodes for bioelectronics. Faraday Discuss 2000 116 119-134. 

D. Petraitis, Silicone biomaterials. Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society Bridging disciplines for biomedicine. Proceedings of the ISth Annual International Conference of the... 

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