Bioactive orthopaedic implants using nanopatterned 3D materials

今天我们的寿命越来越长，与此同时，我们的生活比以往任何时候都更加活跃。这意味着越来越年轻的患者现在面临部分或全髋关节置换术。这与较长的预期寿命相结合，增加了修复手术的可能性，因为假体的寿命比患者的寿命短。预期寿命。这有几个问题。首先，年轻患者髋关节置换术的成功率较低，因此外科医生往往会推迟此类手术。其次，翻修手术的成功率明显降低，假体的使用寿命大大缩短。增加假体使用寿命的一项重要进展是无骨水泥植入物。在这里，种植体的表面已经被磨粗，从而提供更好的锁定与内生骨。尽管如此，目前的植入物仍有很大的改进空间。骨髓是干细胞的丰富来源，在适当的刺激下，干细胞可以变成成骨细胞。当手术过程中植入髋关节时，它将直接与骨髓接触。我们已经发现了一种特殊的纳米模式，可以促进骨髓干细胞成为成骨细胞。这个项目将把我们的非凡发现从培养皿中提取出来，并将结果转化为新一代的骨科植入物，其性能优于现有的植入物。为了实现这一雄心勃勃的目标，我们设计了一个明确的技术发展计划，并结合必要的生物实验，将我们的技术带到大型动物舞台上。我们的初步结果是在图案塑料表面上进行的。然而，塑料不具备用于假肢所需的机械性能（强度）。这种承重植入物通常是用钛制成的，我们将开发这种金属植入物的定型方法。据我们所知，这将是世界上首次在骨科金属种植体表面开发出骨诱导过程（未成熟细胞向骨形成细胞的发育）。

Today we live longer and longer, and at the same time we have a more active life than ever before. This means that younger and younger patients are now facing partial or total hip replacement. This combined with a longer life expectancy increases the possibility of revision surgery as the life span of prostheses is shorter than the patients? life expectancy. This possesses several problems. Firstly, the success of a hip replacement is lower for younger patients and as a result such surgical procedures are often being delayed by the surgeons. Secondly, revision surgery is significantly less successful and the lifetime of the prostheses is greatly reduced. A major step forward to increase the lifetime of a prosthesis has been for cementless implants. Here the surface of the implant has been roughened thus providing a better locking with the ingrowing bone. Nonetheless, there is still space for significant improvements of current implants. The bone marrow is a rich source of stem cells which can, provided the correct stimuli, become bone forming cells. When a hip implant in fitted during the surgical procedure it will come in direct contact with the bone marrow. We have discovered a specific nanopattern which promotes the stem cells from the bone marrow to become bone forming cells. This project will take our remarkable discovery from a Petri dish and turn the results into a new generation of orthopaedic implants with improved properties over current ones. To realise this ambitious goal we have devised a clear technology development plan combined with the necessary biological experiments to bring our technology to a large animal stage. Our initial results have been performed on patterned plastic surfaces. However, plastics do not have the required mechanical properties (strength) to be used for prostheses. Such load bearing implants are commonly made in titanium and we will develop methods to pattern such metal implants.To the best of our knowledge this will be a world s first to develop osseoinductive process (development of immature cells to bone forming cells) on an orthopaedic metal implant surface.