Pacific Rim Symposium on Surfaces, Coatings and Interfaces (PacSurf 2016)
    Biomaterial Surfaces & Interfaces Thursday Sessions
       Session BI-ThM

Paper BI-ThM6
Plasma Engineered Surface for Managing Growth Factor Release in Stem Cell Culture

Thursday, December 15, 2016, 9:40 am, Room Milo

Session: Plasma for Biomedical Applications
Presenter: Jason Whittle, University of South Australia, Australia
Correspondent: Click to Email
The surface modification of materials used in biomedical applications is one of the earliest successful applications of gas plasma treatment. Such “Tissue Culture Plastics” are the mainstay of cell culture facilities to this day.

More recently, the ability to use plasma polymerisation to engineer novel surfaces has opened up the possibility of more advanced surfaces for cell culture. Products based around this technology are now also widely available.

In our laboratory we have developed plasma deposited surfaces that bind glycosaminoglycans from solution, and which are subsequently able to bind and release growth factors and other signalling molecules into solution. The presence of these growth factors enables the culture of primary- and stem cells without the need to add these growth factors to the media formulation. The development and application of this surface in the culture of human cells will be described, in addition to some of the challenges associated with commercialisation of plasma deposited films, where better knowledge of the physics and chemistry of depositing plasmas is needed.