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Publication Details
AFRICAN RESEARCH NEXUS
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN RESEARCH
biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology
On the nature of biomaterials
Biomaterials, Volume 30, No. 30, Year 2009
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Description
The situations in which biomaterials are currently used are vastly different to those of just a decade ago. Although implantable medical devices are still immensely important, medical technologies now encompass a range of drug and gene delivery systems, tissue engineering and cell therapies, organ printing and cell patterning, nanotechnology based imaging and diagnostic systems and microelectronic devices. These technologies still encompass metals, ceramics and synthetic polymers, but also biopolymers, self assembled systems, nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes and quantum dots. These changes imply that our original concepts of biomaterials and our expectations of their performance also have to change. This Leading Opinion Paper addresses these issues. It concludes that many substances which hitherto we may not have thought of as biomaterials should now be considered as such so that, alongside the traditional structural biomaterials, we have substances that have been engineered to perform functions within health care where their performance is directly controlled by interactions with tissues and tissue components. These include engineered tissues, cells, organs and even viruses. This essay develops the arguments for a radically different definition of a biomaterial. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Authors & Co-Authors
Williams, David F.
United States, Winston Salem
Wake Forest University School of Medicine
South Africa, Cape Town
University of Cape Town
Australia, Sydney
Unsw Sydney
China, Beijing
Tsinghua University
United Kingdom, Liverpool
University of Liverpool
Statistics
Citations: 795
Authors: 1
Affiliations: 5
Identifiers
Doi:
10.1016/j.biomaterials.2009.07.027
ISSN:
01429612
Research Areas
Environmental
Genetics And Genomics