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Designing materials for biology and medicine

Nature volume 428, pages 487–492 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

Biomaterials have played an enormous role in the success of medical devices and drug delivery systems. We discuss here new challenges and directions in biomaterials research. These include synthetic replacements for biological tissues, designing materials for specific medical applications, and materials for new applications such as diagnostics and array technologies.

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Figure 1: Electrospun fibres of elastin-like artificial proteins made by expression of artificial genes in bacterial cells.
Figure 2: Time series of photographs showing recovery of a shape-memory tube.
Figure 3: Degradable polymeric microchip.
Figure 4: Miroarray of 5,800 yeast proteins, each fused to a hexahistidine sequence that facilitates immobilization on a nickel-coated glass slide. A second fused sequence, that of glutathione S-transferase (GST), allows visualization with anti-GST antibodies.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Building E25-342, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02139, USA

    Robert Langer

  2. Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Mail Code 164-30, Pasadena, California, 91125, USA

    David A. Tirrell

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  1. Robert Langer
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Correspondence to Robert Langer.

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The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Movie 1

A biodegradable shape memory polymer creates a self-tying knot due to a change in temperature (Courtesy of Andreas Lendlein). (MP4 1321 kb)

Supplementary Movie 2

Video displaying an idealized version of a switchable surface.(MP4 213 kb)

Supplementary Movie Legends and Figure (DOC 83 kb)

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Langer, R., Tirrell, D. Designing materials for biology and medicine. Nature 428, 487–492 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02388

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