Novel coating requires no donor material to regenerate bones

Scientists at the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University in Russia’s westernmost enclave of Kaliningrad in partnership with their Siberian colleagues are working on new calcium-phosphate (CaP) coatings for medical purposes.

These thin coating films could be widely used across applications, including bone tissue bioengineering. In this promising biomedical segment, no donor biomaterial is required to regenerate bones damaged through traumas or diseases such as osteoporosis.

CaP coatings are typically deposited onto titanium implants in the presence of an inert gas. Material science specialists from the Tomsk Polytechnic University in Siberia partnered with their Kaliningrad colleagues and are now studying how inert gases (xenon, neon, krypton, and argon) influence the physical-chemical composition and properties of CaP coatings on titanium, while a Kant University team is looking into the way human stem cells react to the films in in vitro mode.

“We found out that at the molecular level, the best possible CaP composition to be used in bone tissue bioengineering forms in the presence of xenon and, with a bit worse results, of argon. Xenon positively impacts the physical-chemical, mechanical and biological properties of coatings used in oral and maxillofacial surgery, orthopedics, and traumatology. The specific way xenon influences the coatings has yet to be understood; but what we have discovered so far appears to be already paving the way for the development of implants with surfaces modifiable at will during production,” said Dr. Igor Khlusov of the Kant University’s Immunology and Cell Biotechnology Center.

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