The Biomaterials Federation of the
North of
The Federation
Biomaterials has been founded in 1993. It is a grouping of research
laboratories implicated in the biomaterials research and associated to industrial
companies and clinical teams. The initial objective was to bring together
partners all interested in the thematic of biomaterials, to give a structure to
this grouping, to create an interdisciplinary network, to elaborate a common
culture and common means of communication, and to define synergic actions.
Briefly said: we wanted to make work together dispersed laboratories and to
create a pluri- and interdisciplinary research cooperation in the domain of
biomaterials.
The Federation is
chaired by a scientific board, which is the organ of decisions and which meets
once every month since 1993. This committee defines and evaluates the
scientific themes, decides the actions of scientific manifestations to
undertake, and coordinates the divers activities. Several External Scientific
Councils have already underlined the originality and the interest of such a
federative enterprise.
Fourteen years later,
in 2007, the Federation is composed of a dozen principal research teams
belonging to 5 regional Universities and
From 1993 to 2007,
the actions of the Biomaterials Federation have been supported by the Regional
Department of Research and Technology and the national Ministry of Research and
Technology, by the Regional Council, by the European Union (FEDER), by the
National Agency of Research (ANR), by the CNRS and INSERM, by the Pasteur
Institute of Lille, and by private companies..
The strength of the
Federation is based on the conception, elaboration, characterization,
evaluation and fabrication of implantable functionalized medical devices with
modulated and controllable biomedical activities. These new medical devices can
be used for bone substitutes, and/or in a larger sense for vascular prostheses
and endovascular devices, for guided tissue regeneration (GTR) in dental
surgery, and for abdominal and intraperitoneal plates and meshes as tissue
scaffold implants.
The Biomaterials
The living standard
of industrial countries does not only increase the life span but also the
prevalence of certain deceases. In addition, the populations support less and
less easily the restriction of physical possibilities and of resulting
handicap. To treat or replace an organ or its function, biomaterials, i.e.
implants and prostheses, take an increasingly important place in the treatment
of deceases respective to nearly all medical disciplines.
Several facts may
foresee a strong amplification of this phenomenon, in particular in the field
of functionalized medical devices, which is a very huge pluridisciplinary and
little explored domain. At our days, the tendency of international research is
not longer the substitution of an organ by Inert and biocompatible
biomaterials, but the research of functionalized medical devices adapted to the
implantation site, which can find therapeutic and medicamental applications.
We assist to the
arrival of a new generation of biomaterials with much higher potentialities.
This evolution is characterized by less mechanical approaches (osteosynthesis
material, articular prostheses, vascular implants, conduct replacements), which
become more and more biological: growth factors, cytoconducting proteins, cell
adhesion enhancing molecules, cell therapy, biotechnology, gene therapy, etc.
These tendencies generate not only consequences on the public health, but may
have strongly considerable economic repercussions. It is related to the patient
costs loosening their autonomy, the proper costs of the biomaterial, and to the
perspectives of the development of new biotechnologies. Prospective studies
consider a period of only some years for when the market of new biomaterials
will overcome the market of classic biomaterials
Innovation: Functionalization of Implants
and Prostheses
The interest
of this evolution is essentially in the development of new types of
functionalized implants and prostheses by divers chemical surface treatments
able to prevent pre-, peri- and postoperatory infections, to improve their plasmatic
compatibility, to stimulate tissue integration and/or to accelerate the time of
healing for the patient. This presents an evident socio-economic advantage and
an important added value for health economics.
Over the last 15 years, biomaterial research is
oriented to the activation of biomaterial surfaces in order to optimize the
interaction in the interface between the material and the biosystem and
subsequently the tissue integration of medical devices. At the present
state-of-the-art, functionalization is turning around the grafting of
polyacrylic acid or polyethylene glycol as spacer molecules for further binding
of bioactive molecules such as growth
factors, antibiotics, extracellular
matrix constituents, and more
specifically cell adhesion modulating molecules, but without any eminent progress.
Since now about 5 years several laboratories have
enhanced their competences to develop new technologies in order to obtain
biocompatible materials with functionalized surfaces. Several means are
available in particular the grafting of bioactive molecules (i) via new spacer
molecules to stimulate the target to go to the material surface, and (ii) via
surface adsorbed molecules to provide controlled drug delivery systems. Most of
these methods can be applied on all implantable materials, and they are in
particular very useful and forthcoming for scaffolds, hybrid medical devices
and tissue engineering. The last few years, a great progress in the
functionalization of biomaterials was achieved by the huge development of
nanosciences applied to the nanostructuring of the material surfaces.
Consequently, this
latter field and the domain of biological and molecular surface coating are
well represented in the Federation, the aim of which is to strengthen
scientific and industrial co-operation between technical, biological and
medical domains. It subsequently attracted researchers from multiple
disciplines such as material science and engineering, mineral and organic
chemistry, (bio)physics, electro-chemistry, analytics, cell and molecular
biology, pharmacology, medicine (orthopedics, dentistry, ophthalmology,
cardiology, urology, visceral surgery) to achieve the improvement of interface
interactions and subsequently of tissue integration of medical devices.
In
addition to the above general aspects, specific areas are considered in the
Federation which cover wide multidisciplinary fields such as surface tailoring;
physical and chemical molecular grafting via spacer and/or cage molecules;
covalent binding of bioactive molecules; controlled drug delivery systems;
nanopaterning and nanostructured devices; interaction between biomaterials
surfaces with bioactive molecules and living cells; improvement of tissue
integration; improvement of cell adhesion by grafting of extracellular matrix
constituents; Cytochemical immune-labelling of cytoskeleton,
extracellular matrix, and focal adhesion contacts; pro-inflammatory markers;
physical and chemical surface characterizations; endogenous biomimetic coatings in
appropriate fluids.
Different techniques allow enhancing sensibly any
therapeutic activity by grafting or complexing bioactive molecules. Two
different basic principles exist:
The principle of this system is that the bioactive
molecule goes to the target. It allows controlling the delivery of antibiotics,
growth factors and other active agents or drugs modulating a physiological
process.
The methods owned by the Member Laboratories of the Federation, we can
graft different bioactive molecules on variable substrates used in nearly all
medical and surgical disciplines: titanium alloys (stents, orthopedic implants,
dental implants, etc.), polymers (vascular prostheses, plaques, meshes,
urologic prostheses, GTR membranes, etc.), rubber silicones (catheters, tubes
for secondary exits, transcutaneous devices, biosensors, etc.), certain
ceramics (bone substitutes, etc.).
Lille, June 7, 2007