Bioactive orthopaedic implants using nanopatterned 3D materials

今天我们的寿命越来越长，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，增加了翻修手术的可能性，因为假体的寿命短于患者？预期寿命这有几个问题。首先，髋关节置换术的成功率对于年轻患者来说较低，因此这种外科手术通常被外科医生延迟。其次，翻修手术的成功率明显降低，假体的使用寿命也大大缩短。非骨水泥型种植体是增加假体寿命的一个重要步骤。这里种植体的表面已经变粗糙，从而提供与向内生长的骨的更好的锁定。尽管如此，目前的植入物仍有显著改进的空间。骨髓是干细胞的丰富来源，在正确的刺激下，干细胞可以成为骨形成细胞。当髋关节植入物在手术过程中安装时，它将直接接触骨髓。我们已经发现了一种特殊的纳米图案，它可以促进骨髓干细胞成为骨形成细胞。该项目将把我们在培养皿中的非凡发现转化为新一代的骨科植入物，其性能优于目前的植入物。为了实现这一雄心勃勃的目标，我们制定了一个明确的技术开发计划，并结合必要的生物实验，将我们的技术推向大型动物阶段。我们的初步结果已经在图案化的塑料表面上进行。然而，塑料不具有用于假体所需的机械性能（强度）。这类承重植入物通常由钛制成，我们将开发出对此类金属植入物进行图案化的方法。据我们所知，这将是世界上第一个在骨科金属植入物表面开发骨诱导过程（未成熟细胞发育为骨形成细胞）的方法。

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.