Bioactive orthopaedic implants using nanopatterned 3D materials

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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.