Micro-Plasma Technology for Controlling Cellular Interactions on Medical Implants

等离子体放电是生物医学研究中聚合物表面改性的理想工具，可以在表面引入特定的元素或官能团。特别是，等离子体工艺可以转移细胞粘附或细胞排斥基团在小域，往往通过使用masks.One的主要目的，这项研究将是开发新的大气压等离子体（微等离子体射流）作为平台，创建化学定义的生物表面上的微米尺度，而不需要口罩。大气压等离子体具有优于基于真空的技术的优点，因为等离子体本身可以缩放到接近细胞尺寸的尺寸，在医学和生物学中提供新的应用，并且便宜、便携并且在功耗方面非常有效。微等离子体射流将在许多不同的气体和可聚合单体中操作，并且将在一系列聚合物表面上限定具有低至50微米尺寸的特定功能的化学特征。该技术将直接应用于人工透镜IOL植入物的表面改性，以研究和控制人上皮细胞（LEC）在透镜上的相互作用。LEC在化学定义的表面和梯度上的粘附、增殖和迁移将是评估该技术作为生物材料工程工具的首要问题。聚合表面的化学和物理性质（使用XPS和其他表面分析工具分析）将与等离子体射流组合物的测量以及细胞-表面相互作用相关。

Plasma discharges are an ideal tool to modify polymeric surfaces used in biomedical research, introducing specific elements or functional groups onto the surface. In particular, plasma processes can transfer cell-adhesive or cell-repulsive groups over small domains, often through the use of masks.One major aim of this study will be to develop new atmospheric pressure plasmas (micro-plasma jets) as platforms to create chemically defined bio-surfaces on the micron scale without the need for masks. Atmospheric pressure plasmas have the advantage over vacuum-based techniques in that the plasmas themselves can be scaled to a size approaching cellular dimensions, offering novel applications in medicine and biology, and are cheap, portable and very efficient in terms of power consumption. The micro-plasma jets will operate in number of different gases and polymerisable monomers and chemical features with specific functionality down to 50 microns dimensions will be defined on a range of polymeric surfaces. The technology will be directly applied to the surface modification of intraocular lens IOL implants to study and control the interaction of human epithelial cells (LEC) on the lens. The adhesion, proliferation and migration of LECs on chemically defined surfaces and gradients will be of prime importance in assessing the technology as a tool for bio-materials engineering. The chemical and physical nature of the polymerized surfaces (analysed using XPS and other surface analytical tools) will be correlated to measurements of the plasma jet composition and also the cell-surface interactions.