Investigating cellular response to biomaterials is of great interest, particularly the interaction with biomaterials that incorporate stimulatory cues, such as electric signals, to regulate cell functions. Biomaterials could also be engineered to respond to cellular behavior, thus potentially applicable in the development of diagnostic sensors. It has been demonstrated that biomaterial surface topography, chemical nature, and stimulatory characteristics influence cell behavior. For example, it has been shown that osteoblasts (bone-forming cells) respond to electrical stimulation as well as to substrate topography. The large variable space and complex phenomena that control materials surface features encourages the use of high-throughput methods to evaluate them. With this in mind, the overall objective of this proposal is to develop combinatorial patterned libraries of conductive polythiophene and nonconductive polystyrene as substrates for inducing attachment and proliferation in osteoblasts. The combinatorial approach will allow us to create surfaces with thousands of variations in properties allowing efficient study of the effect of polymer surface features and chemistry on cell functions. ? ? ?
| Rincon, Charlene; Chen, Chien-Chiang; Meredith, J Carson (2010) Effect of poly(3-octylthiophene) doping on the attachment and proliferation of osteoblasts. Macromol Biosci 10:1536-43 |
| Rincon, Charlene; Meredith, J Carson (2010) Osteoblast adhesion and proliferation on poly(3-octylthiophene) thin films. Macromol Biosci 10:258-64 |
