Bone-mimicking mineralization

For most SMPINCs, the use of various inorganic fillers for their unique composite properties is prohibitive in a biological setting because of the cytotoxicity of the nanofillers. However, researchers have recently been adding biocompatible inorganics to polymer networks in order to obtain more biofriendly properties. For example, when researchers added the bone mineral-mimicking hydroxyapatite (HA) to a poly(D,L-lactide) (PDLLA) network, they not only validated a SMPINC... 

A urea-mediated mineralization technique was developed to enable the formation of pHEMA-based hydrogel-calcium phosphate composites with excellent polymer-mineral interfacial adhesion strength that is desirable for bone mimics. This mineralization method was also applied to generate more sophisticated composites containing functional hydrogels that possess anionic groups mimicking the extracellular matrix proteins in bone. 

Li, X. R., Xie, J. W., Lipner, J., Yuan, X. Y, Thomopoulos, S., and Xia, Y. N. 2009. Nanofiber scaffolds with gradations in mineral content for mimicking the tendon-to-bone insertion site. Nano Lett. 9 2763-2768. 

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