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To tackle such questions, researchers at the National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST) and the New Jersey Center for
Biomaterials (NJCB) at Rutgers University have developed new methods
to analyze the interactions between cells and biomaterials. Their work
could lead to inexpensive techniques for building better biomaterials.
Polymers derived from the amino acid tyrosine make up a broad class of
degradable biomaterials under investigation. Such materials provide a
temporary scaffold for cells to grow and tissue to regenerate. In a
2006 study* presented at the national meeting of the American Chemical
Society in September, the researchers analyzed how two types of model
cells - immune cells known as macrophages and bone cells known as
osteoblasts - responded to changes in the composition of thin films
made of these tyrosine-derived polymers. In practice, many
biomaterials are made from blends of polymers to achieve specific
material properties. Optimizing the blend composition is often a
difficult and time-consuming task. As the blends gained a higher or
lower proportion of a respective material, the cells around them react
by changing shape, ultimately increasing or decreasing contact with
the films. In the body, such cell-material dynamics are critically
important to the outcome - determining whether a biomaterial leads to
inflammation or abnormal cell growth, for example.
The new study represents an innovative line of research. Working with
NJCB, NIST scientists have developed a method for constructing "scaffold
libraries" - collections of biomaterial scaffolds made from controlled
polymer blend compositions. The library currently contains scaffolds
made from blends of poly(DTE carbonate) and poly(DTO carbonate).
Ultimately, Becker says, the goal is to develop rapid, inexpensive
methods to predict the behavior in the body of any of thousands of
possible tyrosine-derived blends.
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