Hierarchical Self Assembly of Multifunctional Biointeractive Surfaces
Abstract
Major Goals: The central goal of this research project is to understand the fundamental materials science underlying the design and development of triggered drug-delivery systems that can prevent infection associated with tissue-contacting biomedical devices. This is important to the Army and other DoD agencies, because the treatment of traumatic battlefield injury is often unavoidably compromised by device-associated infection. Such complications can lead to long recovery periods, multiple surgeries, reduced limb function, amputation, or even death. Materials that can avoid device-associated infection will thus substantially enhance the recovery of injured soldiers. The strategic goal of this project is thus to develop materials using a family of multifunctional polymeric microgels with which to control the physico-chemical surface properties of tissue-contacting biomedical devices and enhance their infection resistance while preserving their ability to promote healing. The project's specific objectives center on controlling the self-assembly and complexation phenomena associated with antimicrobial loading into, sequestration within, and triggered release from anionic microgels. We are: synthesizing microgels by suspension copolymerization of different acrylate-based monomers, each bringing control over microgel charge, hydrophobicity, and functionality; characterizing the average microgel properties using zeta potential measurements and dynamic light scattering (DLS); quantifying individual microgel properties using various microscopies including cryo-electron microscopy and wet-cell AFM; and Assessing bacteriamaterial interactions using gram positive/negative species implicated in biomaterials-associated infections and assessing cell-material interactions using in vitro osteoblast monoculture experiments.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 30, 2016
- Accession Number
- AD1067749
Entities
People
- Matthew W Libera
Organizations
- Stevens Institute of Technology