Probing the metal surface/amino acid interface with scanning tunneling microscopy and synchrotron spectroscopy

设计用于人体的材料，例如髋关节和膝关节置换，需要很好地了解材料表面与身体组织之间的相互作用，以避免排斥等问题。解决这一复杂问题的一种方法是从下往上开始，在纳米尺度（单个分子的长度尺度）上研究氨基酸分子与不同表面的相互作用。氨基酸是蛋白质的组成部分，蛋白质是在我们体内执行许多关键功能的大生物分子，是身体组织的主要成分。了解单个氨基酸分子如何与表面相互作用的进展为构建涉及蛋白质，细胞和整个组织的更复杂相互作用的图像提供了基础。

The design of materials for use in the human body, for example for hip and knee replacements, requires a good understanding of the interaction between the surface of that material and the body's tissues, in order to avoid problems like rejection. One approach to solving this complex problem is to start from the bottom up and examine the interaction of amino acid molecules with different surfaces at the nanoscale - the length scale of an individual molecule. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, large biomolecules which perform many key functions in our bodies and are a major constituent of body tissues. Advances in understanding how individual amino acid molecules interact with a surface provide a foundation upon which to build a picture of ever more complex interactions involving proteins, cells and whole tissues.