Invited Paper BI+AS-MoM3
Nitric Oxide Materials—An Approach to Creating More Hemocompatible Medical Device Coatings

Monday, November 7, 2016, 9:00 am, Room 101A

Blood/material interaction is critical to the success of implantable medical devices, ranging from simple catheters, stents and grafts, to complex extracorporeal artificial organs which are used in thousands of patients every day. There are two major limiting factors to clinical application of blood contacting materials: 1) platelet activation leading to thrombosis, and 2) infection. Despite a thorough understanding of the mechanisms of blood–surface interactions, and decades of bioengineering research effort, the ideal non-thrombogenic prosthetic surface remains an unsolved problem. One approach to improving the hemocompatibility of blood-contacting devices is to develop materials that release nitric oxide (NO), a known potent inhibitor of platelet adhesion/activation and also an antimicrobial agent. Healthy endothelial cells exhibit a NO flux of 0.5-4x10^-10 mol cm^-2 min^-1, and materials that mimic this NO release are expected to have similar anti-thrombotic properties. I will discuss the potential of incorporating NO donor molecules such as diazeniumdiolates or S-nitrosothiols (RSNOs) into various polymers, and their hemocompatibility and antibacterial properties in short-term (4 h) and long-term (7 d) animal models.