Osteointegration of Polymer Composites for Medical Implants

Active medical implants are electronic devices implanted inside the human body and used to restore damaged or lost organ or functionality. There is a great potential for active implants to provide permanent solutions to extremely complicated and/or incurable medical conditions such as blindness, Alzheimer disease, heart disease, diabetes and arthritis. However, there are serious apprehensions regarding the safety and durability of existing active medical implants. The currently available metal- made implants can cause complications during operation such as device detachment, leakage, debris contamination and tissue loosening around the device. These complications may generate serious medical conditions and cast a grave doubt on the active medical implants industry. We introduce a new implants design based on novel hybrid materials of nano and micro organic and inorganic thin films coating on carbon fibre reinforced polyether ether ketone (CF-PEEK). We will utilize these hybrid materials to achieve medical implants enhanced biocompatibility, and osteointegration (bone incorporation) using the cochlear implant as a case study. These achievements will enable the creation of safe, and durable implants. Our approach includes the use of inventive structuring of multi layers functional nano and micro thin films that will deliver a permeation barrier for the implant in addition to providing the necessary signals for enhanced biocompatibility and osteointegration for devices that are anchored by bone. In this inter-disciplinary project, we will deliver answers to fundamental questions related to the fields of hybrid thin films structuring and polymer-living tissue interactions. In addition, we will provide the technological platform towards creating safe and effective active implants.

Active medical implants are electronic devices implanted inside the human body and used to restore damaged or lost organ or functionality. There is a great potential for active implants to provide permanent solutions to extremely complicated and/or incurable medical conditions such as blindness, Alzheimer disease, heart disease, diabetes and arthritis. However, there are serious apprehensions regarding the safety and durability of existing active medical implants. The currently available metal-made implants can cause complications during operation such as device detachment, leakage, debris contamination and tissue loosening around the device. These complications may generate serious medical conditions and cast a grave doubt on the active medical implants industry. We introduced a new implants design concept based on novel hybrid materials of nano and micro organic and inorganic thin films coating on polyether ether ketone (CF-PEEK). We utilized these hybrid materials to achieve medical implants enhanced biocompatibility, and osteointegration (bone incorporation) using the cochlear implant as a case study. These achievements enabled the creation of safe and durable implants. Our approach included the use of inventive structuring of multi layers functional nano and micro thin films that delivered a permeation barrier for the implant in addition to providing the necessary signals for enhanced biocompatibility and osteointegration for devices that are anchored by bone. In this inter-disciplinary project, we provided answers to fundamental questions related to the fields of hybrid thin films structuring and polymer-living tissue interactions. In addition, we provided the technological platform towards creating safe and effective active implants.