| Pacific Rim Symposium on Surfaces, Coatings and Interfaces (PacSurf 2016) | |
| Biomaterial Surfaces & Interfaces | Thursday Sessions |
| Session BI-ThM |
| Session: | Plasma for Biomedical Applications |
| Presenter: | Hanieh Safizadeh, University of South Australia, Australia |
| Authors: | H. Safizadeh, University of South Australia, Australia A. Michelmore, University of South Australia, Australia J.D. Whittle, University of South Australia, Australia |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Cell-surfaces interaction plays a significant role in biomedical applications and cell therapies. In many cases, materials which are convenient for manufacturing biomedical devices and culture ware exhibit poor cell adhesion. Therefore, it is important to modify cell-surface interactions using surface engineering. Poly(furfuryl methacrylate) (p(FMA)) is a promising polymer surface that recently has been recognized for stem cell adhesion and proliferation due to the furan ring in its structure. However controlling the thickness and topography of surface coatings of p (FMA) is difficult, which inhibits scale-up. Plasma polymerization offers a simple, solvent-free method for coating surfaces with FMA which is substrate independent, with fine control of film thickness and topography.
Herein, FMA plasma polymer coatings were prepared with different powers, deposition times and flowrates. Furan ring retention on these surfaces has been determined using chemical analysis such as XPS and ToF-SIMS. SEM demonstrated the existence of particle aggregates under certain plasma conditions. Through judicious choice of plasma polymerization parameters the formation and quantity of the particle aggregates was reduced and the fabricated plasma polymer coatings became chemically uniform and smooth and the furan ring retention was maximized. These optimised surfaces support cell proliferation, comparable to results with tissue culture plastic, while maintaining cell fate. These findings show not only the chemistry of surfaces is important but also that surface morphology plays an important role in cell adhesion and proliferation.