Biomaterials

Cells can react to synthetic surfaces with a wide way of responses which depend upon many factors, including chemical composition of the surface and the physical properties of the bulk substrate material, including substrate stiffness, topography feature size and geometry. It is now widely accepted that mechanical stimulus exerted onto cells by topographic cues can set off specific physiological processes that ultimately dictate the cell behaviour and fate. Identifying the specific topographical cues that lead to a specific cell behaviour, that is still an endeavour in biomaterial research for application areas impacting regenerative medicine or tissue engineering. In this sense, there have been numerous approaches to develop materials with fine control of the topographical features using micro and nanofabrication techniques. In our laboratory, we use polymer nanoimprinting to produce with nanoscale precision and high reproducibility, cellular instructive micro and nano topographical environments. We specifically investigate the response of progenitor neural stem cells to dense high aspect ratio polymer pillars on the micro and nano scale studies on cell viability, morphology, cell spreading and migration indicating that high aspect ratio topographies impact dramatically the cytoskeleton remodelling and distribution of the cellular tractions which in turn, gave rise to very distinctive cell behaviour. Nanosurface features inspired on the moth eye topography have also been investigated as bactericidal biocompatible surfaces for bionic implants. This surface has been demonstrated to be an effective bactericidal topography against Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria. At the same time, the surface supported cell growth and did not influence the biological cellular responses.

 

 

 

 

Recent Publications:

 

1. Viela F, Granados D, Osorio M R and Ayuso A, Rodríguez I (2016) Biomechanical cell regulation on high aspect ratio nanoimprinted pillars. Advanced Functional Materials 26: 5599-5609.
2. Ho AY, Luong-Van E, Lim CT, Natarajan S, Elmouelhi N, Low H Y, Vyakarna M, Cooper K and Rodriguez I (2014) Lotus bioinspired superhydrophobic, self-cleaning surfaces from hierarchically assembled templates. Journal of Polymer Science Part B: Polymer Physics 52: 603-609.
3.  Rodriguez I, Lim C, Natarajan S, Ho YY, Luong van E, Elmouelhi N , Low HY, Vyakarnam M and Cooper K (2013) Shear adhesion strength of gecko-inspired tapes on surfaces with variable roughness. Journal of Adhesion. 89: 921-936.
4. Luong-Van E, Rodriguez I, Low HY, Elmouelhi N, Lowenhaupt B, Natarajan S, Lim CT, Prajapati R, Vyakarnam M and Cooper K (2013) Micro- and nanostructured surface engineering for biomedical applications. Journal of Materials Research 28: 165-174.
5.  Lin L, Chu YS, Thiery JP, Lim CT, Rodriguez I (2013) Microfluidic cell trap array for controlled positioning of single cells on adhesive micropatterns. Lab on Chip 13: 714-721.