Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

Protein adsorption is the initial event that occurs when materials come into intimate contact with the body and plays a vital role in the functioning of implants, biosensors and other biomedical devices.  Pre-adsorbed protein layers essentially dictate biocompatibility, with cellular responses taking place at the surface of the adsorbed protein film rather than on the biomedical device itself.  While protein adsorption on biopolymer materials has long been the subject of biomaterials studies, corresponding systematic studies on metallic biomaterials are generally lacking despite the prominent role these materials play in the majority of orthopedic and cardiovascular applications.    Combinatorial and High Throughout Methods will be used to prepare thin film libraries of metallic biomaterials.  In these binary, ternary or quaternary libraries composition varies smoothly with position.  Protein adsorption can therefore be studied on a huge range of materials in a single experiment, provided an automated, reliable, scanning detection scheme can be adopted.  This proposal is for a scanning spectrocopic ellipsometer for studies of protein on combinatorial libraries of metallic biomaterials.  Ellipsometry is used by many researchers to study protein adsorption, but has never before been coupled with combinatorial metallic libraries of materials.  We believe such a combination will lead to great advances in understanding and also to new materials that will benefit Canadians.