NANO-BIO-MATERIALS

The group Nanobiomaterials deals with complex constructs made of inorganic, metallic, and polymeric components, mainly in the area of implants and tissue engineering. Within this field, nanoporous materials play an important role as a reservoir for drug delivery systems. Nanoporous drug reservoirs made of inorganic materials offer the advantage that they provide a large permanent volume (app. 50% of the total volume) for drug storage. Usually, we install the drug delivery system on the surface of the implant to release the drug directly at the desired location (implant-associated drug delivery), thus avoiding the issue of targeting. Apart from small molecule drugs, complex biomolecules like growth factors or siRNA are delivered. In many cases, we use nanoporous silica in our work, but nanoporous metals also play a major role, as well as organic-inorganic hybrid materials like PMOs (periodic mesoporous organosilicas) or MOFs (metal-organic frameworks). In addition to implant-associated drug delivery, scaffolds for tissue engineering are also developed.

In the research program "Biofabrication for NIFE", which was initiated accompanying to the foundation of the NIFE, we worked on the development of drug delivery systems based on titanium and titania which release their drug on the trigger of a decreasing pH value by unfolding polymer strains; in this way,, for example, antibiotics in the consequence of an acidic surrounding tissue evoked by a bacterial infection. This work is continued with regard to its application in the clinical field.