Nanostructured Active Biomaterials for Tissue Engineering Applications

In recent years, considerable effort has been devoted to the design and controlled fabrication of nanostructured materials with functional properties. The layer by layer buildup of the polyelectrolyte multilayered films from oppositely charged polyelectrolytes [1] offers new opportunities for the preparation of functionalized biomaterial coatings. This technique allows the preparation of supramolecular nano-architectures exhibiting specific properties in terms of control of cell activation and may also play a role in the development of local drug or gene delivery systems. In our team, peptides, proteins or DNA, chemically bound to polyelectrolytes, adsorbed on or embedded in such architectures, have been shown to retain their biological activities. The challenge is now to develop a novel generation of multifunctional architectures and to use them for clinical applications.