Bioactive material surfaces

这个项目的重点是了解和控制细胞和生物材料表面之间发生的相互作用。根据我的实验室正在进行的研究，我们建议在这里构建各种化学受控的平台，以了解简单官能团和粘附肽与蛋白质和不同类型细胞之间的相互作用。利用非破坏性和生物相容的化学，我们建议从修改模型二维表面开始，并将所获得的结果转化为用于硬组织和软组织再生的三维支架。这里的最终目标是制备一种能够吸引和刺激每个隔室中不同类型细胞的活动的复合支架。在相同的策略中，我们还建议测试基于骨软骨骨化和石墨烯的两种非传统的骨再生方法。总的新颖性和优势在于使用一种简单且几乎通用的表面修饰技术来比较简单化学基团和来自细胞自然相互作用的细胞外基质的粘附肽的效果。这种方法将导致对材料/细胞相互作用的基本理解的重要进展，以及一套易于移植到临床和市场的平台。例如，二维表面可以立即用作新的基质来加强细胞培养；由于使用了FDA批准的材料，支架可以在相对较短的时间内应用于临床。用最具创新性的策略制备的材料在短期内可能无法翻译，但有可能产生一种颠覆性的骨组织工程新方法。

This program focuses on understanding and controlling interactions occurring between cells and biomaterial surfaces. Following ongoing studies in my laboratory, we propose here to fabricate a variety of platforms with controlled chemistry to understand the interaction between simple functional groups and adhesion peptides with proteins and different types of cells. Using a non-destructive and biocompatible chemistry, we propose to start off by modifying model bi-dimensional surfaces, and translate the results obtained to three-dimensional scaffolds for both hard and soft tissue regeneration. The final objective here is to prepare a composite scaffold able to attract and stimulate the activity of different cell types in each compartment. Within the same strategy we also propose to test two unconventional approaches for bone regeneration based on osteochondral ossification and graphene. The overall novelty and strength lies in the use of a simple and almost universal surface modification technique to compare the effect of simple chemical groups with that of adhesion peptides derived from the extracellular matrix that cells naturally interact with. Such approach will lead to important advances in fundamental understanding of material/cell interactions, as well as to a set of platforms easily translatable to the clinic and the market. For example, the bi-dimensional surfaces can be immediately used as new substrates to enhance cell culture; and the scaffolds could be applied to the clinic in a relatively short time thanks to the use of FDA-approved materials. The set of materials prepared with the most innovative strategies may not be translatable in the short term but have the potential to produce a disruptive new approach for bone tissue engineering.