| AVS 55th International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Biological, Organic, and Soft Materials Focus Topic | Tuesday Sessions |
| Session BO+PS+AS+BI+SS-TuA |
| Session: | Plasma-deposited Polymer and Organic Surfaces in Biological Applications |
| Presenter: | M.R. Alexander, The University of Nottingham, UK |
| Authors: | M. Taylor, The University of Nottingham, UK A.J. Urquhart, The University of Nottingham, UK Y. Mei, MIT D.G. Anderson, MIT R. Langer, MIT M.C. Davies, The University of Nottingham, UK M.R. Alexander, The University of Nottingham, UK |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
In the search for new and improved biomaterials, combinatorial material discovery approaches are increasingly being explored. A significant development in the production of polymer libraries by parallel synthesis was the move from preparation of macroscopic samples,1 to on-slide polymerisation as microarrays in nano-litre volumes.2 Such microarray material libraries may readily be interrogated by automated surface analysis equipment. Recently, high throughput surface analysis of a library of 576 different acrylate copolymers in triplicate on one slide using water contact angle (WCA), XPS and ToF SIMS highlighted the difference in the bulk and surface composition of the polymer spots, and consequently the need for surface analysis data when determining structure-property relationships.3 The complexity of SIMS data, multiplied by the number of different samples necessitates the use of multivariate analytical approaches. Using partial least squares (PLS) analysis, relationships between SIMS fragments and WCA have led to identification of moieties controlling wettability across the wide range of copolymers synthesised on one microarray.4 Comparison of human embryonic stem cell number on the spots with SIMS spectra have identified further SIMS fragments that correlate with high or low cell-polymer affinity. Protein adsorption measurements have been undertaken in an attempt to rationalise the cell adhesion data.5 The correlations identified, and the information on the relationship between the surface structure and cell response or wettability will be discussed in this exploration of the high throughput approach.
1 Brocchini S et al. Structure-property correlations in a combinatorial library of degradable biomaterials. Journal of Biomedical Materials Research 1998 42 66.
2 Anderson DG, et al. Nanoliter-scale synthesis of arrayed biomaterials and application to human embryonic stem cells. Nature Biotechnology 2004 22 863.
3 Urquhart AJ, et al. High throughput surface characterisation of a combinatorial material library. Adv Mats 2007 19 2486.
4 Urquhart AJ et al. TOF-SIMS analysis of a 576 micropatterned copolymer array to reveal surface moieties that control wettability. Anal Chem 2008 80 135.
5 Taylor M et al. A Methodology for Investigating Protein Adhesion and Adsorption to Microarrayed Combinatorial Polymers. Rapid Macromol Comm 2008 (in press).