Engineering the Surface of POSS-PCU Nanocomposite by Plasma to Improve Blood Compatibility

A novel nanocomposite polymer comprising polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) nanoparticle and poly (carbonate urea) urethane (PCU) polymer was developed for iomedical applications1. The polymer has in vitro and three years large animal studies in term of biocompatibility. It iswidely accepted that most important biological interactionshappen on the surface of a biomaterial. Hence, surface modification of biomaterials has become an interesting topicin medical engineering as well. Among various surface modification techniques, plasma surface modification (PSM) has been proven to be very effective 2. Actually, cells in their in vivo microenvironment constantly encounter and respond to a multitude of signals including biochemical or biophysicalcues. While the role of biochemical signals such as growth factors and cell culture medium has long been appreciated, theimportance of biophysical signals like surface topography has only recently been investigated with the progress in microfabrication technologies3. In fact, the microfabricationtechnologies have allowed for the generation of biomaterials with microscale topographies and give the opportunity tostudy the effect of topography as one of the most important biophysical cues at the cell-substrate interface3. In this study, using PSM topographies with different geometries was produced on the surface of POSS-PCU nanocomposite and the varying in their blood compatibility was evaluated