Inorganic Biomaterials with Therapeutic Potential

骨骼骨折每年花费加拿大医疗保健提供者超过13亿美元，手术修复这些骨折可能会导致额外的成本，部分原因是手术过程中细菌侵入(龋齿)。例如，2009-10财年在加拿大医院进行的15,953例髋关节置换手术中，超过10%是翻修手术。这些费用是初始手术的两倍，并大大加剧了加拿大医院的等待时间危机。骨科设备的设计是为了通过外科手术解决身体损伤，而医疗是通过药物干预来提供的。对于骨质疏松症患者，身体损害涉及骨密度降低；对于癌症患者，健康骨骼遭到破坏；对于龋齿患者，则涉及细菌驱动的侵蚀。唯一真正成功的骨替代材料是骨本身，通过自体移植(来自同一患者的骨)或异体移植(来自另一名患者的骨)获得。然而，由于这种移植物的局限性(如供体部位发病率、疼痛、感染、有限的供应和不一致的成骨活性)，人们正在推动开发适合骨骼承重应用的合成替代品。理想情况下，这些材料将在骨折部位进行治疗，以最大限度地减少后续手术的需要。因此，这项研究的目标是开发与细胞相互作用的合成材料，以解锁身体的自我修复能力。该计划将设计和合成包含离子物种或离子物种组合的新型材料，已知的离子物种在骨骼中传递治疗反应。它将通过招收来自不同学术背景的学生来扩大申请者实验室的专业知识，从而创造一个多学科的环境，在这个环境中，这些独特的材料将使用标准和新技术进行合成和评估。短期内，该项目将为Ryerson的学生和研究人员提供一个激动人心的培训场所，使他们能够在工程环境中解决临床问题。从长远来看，这项研究将推动玻璃和陶瓷在骨科领域的应用，带来更广泛的技术创新。通过参与研究计划，高素质人才(HQP)将在材料和临床科学的界面上发展跨学科技能。这些HQP随后将充斥加拿大学术界和工业界，给加拿大人民带来实实在在的好处。

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.