Spectroscopic ellipsometer for combinatorial studies of protein adsorption on biomaterial libraries

蛋白质吸附是材料与人体亲密接触时发生的初始事件，在植入物、生物传感器和其他生物医学设备的功能中起着至关重要的作用。预吸附蛋白层本质上决定了生物相容性，细胞反应发生在吸附蛋白膜的表面而不是生物医学设备本身。长期以来，蛋白质在生物高分子材料上的吸附一直是生物材料研究的主题，但金属生物材料在大多数骨科和心血管应用中发挥着突出的作用，但通常缺乏相应的系统研究。组合和高贯穿方法将用于制备金属生物材料的薄膜库。在这些二元、三元或四元库中，成分随位置的变化而平稳变化。因此，只要采用自动化、可靠的扫描检测方案，就可以在单个实验中对大量材料进行蛋白质吸附研究。本文提出了一种用于金属生物材料组合文库中蛋白质研究的扫描光谱椭偏仪。椭圆偏振法被许多研究人员用于研究蛋白质吸附，但以前从未与材料的组合金属文库相结合。我们相信，这样的结合将导致理解的巨大进步，也将使加拿大人受益的新材料。

Protein adsorption is the initial event that occurs when materials come into intimate contact with the body and plays a vital role in the functioning of implants, biosensors and other biomedical devices.  Pre-adsorbed protein layers essentially dictate biocompatibility, with cellular responses taking place at the surface of the adsorbed protein film rather than on the biomedical device itself.  While protein adsorption on biopolymer materials has long been the subject of biomaterials studies, corresponding systematic studies on metallic biomaterials are generally lacking despite the prominent role these materials play in the majority of orthopedic and cardiovascular applications.    Combinatorial and High Throughout Methods will be used to prepare thin film libraries of metallic biomaterials.  In these binary, ternary or quaternary libraries composition varies smoothly with position.  Protein adsorption can therefore be studied on a huge range of materials in a single experiment, provided an automated, reliable, scanning detection scheme can be adopted.  This proposal is for a scanning spectrocopic ellipsometer for studies of protein on combinatorial libraries of metallic biomaterials.  Ellipsometry is used by many researchers to study protein adsorption, but has never before been coupled with combinatorial metallic libraries of materials.  We believe such a combination will lead to great advances in understanding and also to new materials that will benefit Canadians.