Designing Novel Nanoscale Ceramics Materials to Interact With Cells and Regenerate Tissues

Professor Sonia Contera is Director of the Institute of Nanoscience for Medicine at Oxford University, a Principle Investigator at Oxford University’s Physics Department, a RCUK Academic Fellow in Biological Physics and Nanomedicine and Senior Research Fellow at Green Templeton College. Professor Contera will describe techniques based on the use of atomic force microscopy (AFM) to study interfaces with a sub-nanometre resolution and will outline the development of techniques based on multifrequency-AFM for mapping the mechanical properties of living cells with unprecedented speed and accuracy in order to design hybrid nanostructures to promote tissue regeneration.

Dr Jiang Chang of the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, will explain some of the interesting properties exhibited by nanostructured bioceramics and bioactive glasses, such as enhanced mechanical strength and bioactivity. He will describe how different forms of nanoparticles of bioceramics and bioactive glasses with controlled size, structure and morphology can be used to prepare materials for a variety of exacting biomedical applications such as bone grafting, tissue engineering and drug delivery.

Dr Kajal Mallick, Associate Professor at the School of Engineering, University of Warwick and Director of Tissue Engineering and Ceramic Processing (TiCeP) at the International Manufacturing Centre, Warwick Manufacturing Group, will describe two different approaches to developing novel bioscaffolds. The first uses camphene-based adaptive foam reticulation, freeze casting and particulate leaching in order to produce interconnected porous bioscaffolds of bioglass, Ca-apatites, and PLA. The second is development of an extrusion method of producing synthetic bone, where compressive loading is a major requirement, using techniques normally employed to make automotive catalytic converters to provide a combination of strength and porosity suitable for cell proliferation, revascularisation and rapid bone in-growth… factors that could offer key benefits to patients.

Professor Ruth Cameron is Chair of Materials Science at the University of Cambridge and directs the Cambridge Centre for Medical Materials. Professor Cameron will describe research at the Centre aimed at developing a range of materials with bioactive structures that encourage the natural function of tissues and which provide tailored mechanical support as scaffolds such as orthopaedic materials formed by combining carefully chosen calcium phosphate phases with a variety of macromolecules, or that release drugs at a controlled rate. She will also outline future strategies for the development of novel medical materials.