Category: LIFE SCIENCES
17. March 2015   12:01 am
Khoren Sahagian

Khoren Sahagian

We were pleased to learn that a team of researchers from the University of California, Berkeley will be presenting their findings related to a method of surface modification introduced by Plasmatreat North America. The work will be shared at the upcoming annual meeting for the American Association for Thoracic Surgery.

Researchers at UC Berkeley worked with the team at Plasmatreat N.A. to identify an effective method for heparin immobilization on electrospun polycarbonate-urethane vascular grafts.  Heparin incorporation provides implantable medical devices with antithrombotic characteristics.

The team explored three surface modification techniques:

  • aminolysis with 1-Ethyl-3-[3-dimethylaminopropyl]carbodiimide hydrochloride (EDC) chemistry as a chemical immobilization
  • polydopamine coating as a passive adsorption
  • plasma treatment paired with end-point immobilization to ultimately conjugate heparin on the graft surface.

 

The most effective modification was determined with respect to the heparin density as well as the antithrombogenic activity of the immobilized heparin. Then, the team proceeded with these optimized PCU grafts immobilized with heparin for short-term in vivo studies.

After 4 weeks, plasma-control grafts exhibited approximately 29% (2 of 7) patency, compared to 86% (6 of 7) patency of plasma-heparin grafts. More importantly, the team observed a more complete endothelialization of the luminal surface with a more aligned, well-organized monolayer of endothelial cells.

The team concluded, in vitro, that the combination of plasma treatment and end-point immobilization of heparin drastically improved the performance of the vascular grafts with respect to patency as well as early stages of endothelialization.

These findings are tremendously exciting because they signal a new era for implantable medical devices. In the past, a goal was to evade biological responses by selecting inert materials that delay host rejection.

Now, however, material modification are allowing researchers to immobilize biomolecules or cytokine, which in turn allows the surface of the device to regulate cellular behavior and to engineer surface response.

The team at Plasmatreat N.A. wants to thank our collaborators at University of California, Berkeley for their innovative utilization of plasma surface modification. Surface chemistry and topography play integral roles in biological development and remodeling. Gas plasma technologies are an effective tool for customized surface engineering.

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