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A new smart surface could significantly improve the safety of medical implants and the accuracy of diagnostic tests.
A team of scientists from McMaster University has created a new surface coating that could be modified to integrate with a specific target while repelling bacteria, viruses and other living cells.
The new surface will allow implants, including vascular grafts, replacement heart valves and artificial joints, to bind to the body without risk of infection or blood clotting, while reducing false positives and negatives in tests by eliminating interference from nonconformities. target elements in the blood and urine.
Other repellent surfaces, developed in 2011, are used for the waterproofing of phones and windshields and the fight against bacteria from food preparation areas. However, they offer limited utility in medical applications where a specific beneficial binding is required.
"Having totally repulsive surfaces was a real achievement. However, to maximize the benefits of such surfaces, we needed to create a selective gate that would allow beneficial elements to bind to these surfaces, "said Tohid DIdar of the McMaster Mechanical and School Engineering Department. Biomedical engineering and the main author of the study, said in a statement.
For example, in a synthetic heart valve, a repellent coating could prevent blood cells from sticking and forming clots, thus greatly increasing safety.
"A coating that repels blood cells could eliminate the need for drugs such as warfarin, used after implants to reduce the risk of clot formation," said co-author Sara Imani, a doctoral student in biomedical engineering at McMaster. in a statement.
According to the researchers, a completely repulsive coating would also prevent the body from integrating the new heart valve into the tissues of the heart itself.
By designing a surface that allows only cardiac tissue adhesion, the new material allows the body to naturally integrate the new valve and avoid the complications of rejection. The surface could also be specifically integrated for other implants such as artificial joints and stents used to open blood vessels.
"If you want a device to work better and not be rejected by the body, that's what you need to do," co-wrote Maryam Badv, also a PhD student in biomedical engineering at McMaster, in a communicated. "It's a huge problem in medicine."
Selectively designed repellent surfaces could also be used on the outside of the body to improve the accuracy of diagnostic tests by allowing only specific targets of a test, such as a virus, bacteria or cell. cancerous, to stick to the biosensor.
The study was published in ACS Nano.
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