Inorganic Biomaterials with Therapeutic Potential

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Bone fractures cost Canadian healthcare providers over $1.3 billion each year and surgical reparation of these fractures can result in additional costs due, in part, to bacterial ingress (caries) during surgery. For example, over 10% of the 15,953 hip replacement surgeries performed in Canadian hospitals during the 2009-10 fiscal year were revision surgeries. These incur double the cost of the initial surgery and contribute significantly to the Canadian hospital wait-times crisis. Orthopedic devices are designed to surgically address physical damage, with medical treatment being supplied by pharmaceutical intervention. For sufferers of osteoporosis, the physical damage concerns reduced bone density; for sufferers of cancer, destruction of healthy bone; and for sufferers of caries, bacteria-driven erosion. The only truly successful bone replacement material is bone itself, harvested either by auto-graft (bone donated from the same patient) or allo-graft (bone donated from another patient). However, because of the limitations of such grafts (e.g. donor-site morbidity, pain, infection, limited supply and inconsistent osteogenic activity) there is a drive toward developing synthetic alternatives that are suitable for load-bearing applications in the skeleton. Ideally these materials will impart a therapy at the fracture site in order to minimize the need for follow-up surgery. Thus the objective of this research is to develop synthetic materials that interact with cells to unblock the body's ability to self-repair. This program will design and synthesize novel materials that incorporate ionic species, or combinations of ionic species, known to impart therapeutic responses in bone. It will expand expertise in the applicant's laboratory by recruiting students from a variety of academic backgrounds, thereby creating a multidisciplinary environment where these unique materials will be synthesized and evaluated using both standard and novel techniques. In the short term, the project will provide a stimulating training venue for Ryerson students and research fellows in an engineering environment addressing a clinical problem. In the long term, this research will advance the applications of glass and ceramics in the field of orthopedics, leading to broader technological innovation. Through participation in the research program, highly qualified personnel (HQP) will develop interdisciplinary skills at the interface of the materials and clinical sciences. These HQPs will subsequently populate both Canadian academia and industry resulting in tangible benefits to the people of Canada.