AVS 53rd International Symposium
    Biomaterial Interfaces Tuesday Sessions
       Session BI1-TuM

Paper BI1-TuM11
Multi-functional Ag/Plasma Polymer Coatings for Antibacterial Biomaterial Surfaces

Tuesday, November 14, 2006, 11:20 am, Room 2001

Session: Microbe-Surface Interactions
Presenter: D.J. Balazs, EMPA Materials Science and Technology, Switzerland
Authors: D.J. Balazs, EMPA Materials Science and Technology, Switzerland
D. Hegemann, EMPA Materials Science and Technology, Switzerland
M. Heuberger, EMPA Materials Science and Technology, Switzerland
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In the past decades much research pertaining to biomaterials surface modification was centred on modifying chemistry or wettability as a strategy to manage interactions with the surrounding environment. New demands for biomaterials surface enhancements have evolved to include multi-functionality and controlled-release. Low pressure plasma techniques represent a unique opportunity to develop tailor-made surfaces with one-step processing in the framework of an eco-friendly process. Thus, low pressure plasma processing is used to develop multi-functional coatings for smart biomaterials applications. Coatings that combine properties such as enhanced cell growth, improved wound healing, and bacterial infection prevention are the focus of the work presented. The deposition of multi-functional silver/plasma polymer (Ag/pp) nano-composites, consisting of nano-scaled Ag clusters embedded within a plasma-polymer matrix is described. Multi-functional Ag/Acrylic acid coatings are deposited to combine anti-bacterial and enhanced cell adhesion properties for wound healing applications. Likewise, Ag/amino-hydrocarbon coatings can be used to attract proteins important to cell growth and simultaneously prevent bacterial colonization. Data is reported pertaining to bacterial adhesion testing in both Gram negative and positive culture environments. A key aspect to the development of controlled-release biomaterials is the ability to characterize release or adsorption kinetics in a precise manner. In order to achieve this, we are using a novel in situ analysis technique that is equally sensitive as other commonly used in situ methods (ca 1 ng/cm@super 2@), and has the benefit that is significantly cheaper and faster. Using plasma deposition a multi-layer biosensor is built, permitting the quantification of both release and adsorption kinetics of the multi-functional coatings. The kinetics of silver release and protein adsorption to Ag/pp is also described.