Biomaterials: applying materials science to living organisms
So, I decided to focus my first proper post on biomaterials. Biomaterials science – there’s a field which unites the three sciences if I ever saw one. Materials science hovers delicately on the border between Chemistry and Physics, and here materials are exploited for use in living organisms, with obvious medical applications.
Biomaterials science first grabbed my attention when I was
at a materials summer school at Manchester University, and there was a research
talk on it which really interested me. I find it fascinating that scientists
can engineer materials that can be used to improve the way our bodies work in
some fashion. And the applications are so diverse: from the tiny
buckminsterfullerene (buckyballs) which can be used in drug delivery, to the design
of prosthetic limbs1 – the possibilities are enormous.to particular cells in the body2
An important type of biomaterial is nanoparticles –
substances which are less than one ten-thousandth of a millimetre in length or
thickness. Being so tiny, nanoparticles can enter our cells and move through
blood vessels. A particular application of this that I’ve
been reading about is gold particles in biomedicine.
One use of these gold particles is in chemical delivery
systems: the nanoparticles are bound to or coated with a substance that you
want to introduce into the cell (such as a particular protein)3.
They are then “engulfed” by the cell: the membrane of the cell pinches in and
fuses around the gold particles, a process called endocytosis. The substances
attached to the gold particles are targeted at a particular part of the cell,
such as the nucleus (the information-containing centre of a cell), but doing so
has proven difficult because after the particles have been taken into the cell,
they are often stuck inside the bit of membrane which originally engulfed them
(known as the endosome)3. This is a big problem!
There are many other diverse applications of biomaterials
which are rapidly growing, such as tissue engineering (where body tissues are
regenerated or enhanced using cell exploitation techniques)4. I hope
my rather superficial overview of what biomaterials is about has interested you
as a reader and perhaps inspired you to learn more.
I’ll end my first post here; look out for my next one which
*might* be on the chemiosmotic principle. Thanks for reading!
2. Picture: http://www.animalnewyork.com/2012/la-dolche-vita-rats-fed-carbon-buckyballs-in-olive-oil-live-twice-as-long/
3. The Biochemist, Vol 35. No 1. Gold Nanoparticles
in Biomedicine by Catherine Berry
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