Prof Gil Lee, Stokes Professor of physical chemistry at the UCD School of Chemistry and Chemical Biology & the UCD Centre for Nanomedicine
A major international conference at University College Dublin this week is exploring the interface between the human body and medical technology. It is the first time the US-based Surfaces in Biomaterials Foundation’s annual BioInterface conference has been hosted outside the United States since it started in 1990.
Drawing together more than 200 experts from academia and industry at UCD’s O’Reilly Hall, the two-day 2012 BioInterface meeting is looking at topics such as surface modification of devices, biomaterials, wound healing, drug delivery systems, plasma medicine and regulatory issues.
There has been a surge of interest in biointerfaces in recent years, because engineering them can improve how medical devices and technology perform in the body, explains Professor Gil Lee, who is presenting a workshop at the meeting. “It’s important to understand and manipulate these interfaces at the level of nanometres, because this is the level at which the body interacts with them,” says Prof Lee, Stokes Professor of Physical Chemistry at UCD School of Chemistry and Chemical Biology.
Simply changing the nanostructure of existing materials - like putting tiny pores in the surface of titanium or steel implants - can profoundly alter how cells in the body adhere to the medical device, explains Prof Lee. “These coatings or modifications are rather inexpensive but they offer a way to control the body’s response,” he says. Another approach is to generate new materials, such as scaffolds of biological materials to help wounds to heal or even to act as artificial skin.
“These are more sophisticated materials, and they need to have the right mechanical properties and chemical cues for the body to respond in a way that promotes healing,” says Prof Lee.
Research at UCD Nanomedicine Centre is currently looking at the safety of using nanomaterials in the body, and analysing how cells in the body react to their mechanical properties. This week’s meeting at UCD is a crucible for the various disciplines that need to work together to better understand biointerfaces and the next generation of implantable medical devices and materials, explains Prof Lee “It’s a field that is highly multi-disciplinary - it’s coming out of chemistry, physics and being applied through really smart engineering and incorporating the best of medicine and biology,” he says.
Dan Hook, Principal Scientist, Bausch & Lomb and President of the Surfaces in Biomaterials Foundation, expresses his delight that BioInterface 2012 is taking place at UCD. “It is a University at the forefront of cutting-edge research and innovation in biomaterials and surface engineering and it is a University which has strong commercial links with the medical industry in Ireland,” he says. “Among the reasons for selecting Ireland as the location for our 2012 conference, the first ever to be held outside the US in our 22-year history, is the large concentration of medical device companies in the country and Ireland boasts the highest per capita medical technology personnel in Europe with nine of the top ten global companies having manufacturing plants in Ireland.”
Representatives from companies such as DePuy, Medtronic, EnBio, Bausch & Lomb SurModics, BASF and Boston Scientific, amongst others, will be attending or presenting during the conference.
By Claire O’Connell
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