Abstract
This review describes some of the major advances made in biomedical surface analysis over the past 30–40 years. Starting from a single technique analysis of homogeneous surfaces, it has been developed into a complementary, multitechnique approach for obtaining detailed, comprehensive information about a wide range of surfaces and interfaces of interest to the biomedical community. Significant advances have been made in each surface analysis technique, as well as how the techniques are combined to provide detailed information about biological surfaces and interfaces. The driving force for these advances has been that the surface of a biomaterial is the interface between the biological environment and the biomaterial, and so, the state-of-the-art in instrumentation, experimental protocols, and data analysis methods need to be developed so that the detailed surface structure and composition of biomedical devices can be determined and related to their biological performance. Examples of these advances, as well as areas for future developments, are described for immobilized proteins, complex biomedical surfaces, nanoparticles, and 2D/3D imaging of biological materials.
Highlights
The beginning of modern biomedical surface analysis can be traced back several decades.1–3 While the origins and importance of surfaces have a much longer history, the earliest surface analysis studies on biomedical materials were done 30–40 years ago.1–3 These early biomedical surface analysis studies typically used a single technique, such as x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS, known as electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis or ESCA), to investigate a homogeneous material.4 As polymers were used in some of the very first biomaterials and continue to be extensively used in biomedical applications, many of the early biomedical surface analysis studies were done on polymeric materials.5–8 These studies focused on characterizing polymers with well-defined functionalities where the structure and functionality could be systematically varied
Starting from a single technique analysis of homogeneous surfaces, it has been developed into a complementary, multitechnique approach for obtaining detailed, comprehensive information about a wide range of surfaces and interfaces of interest to the biomedical community
The driving force for these advances has been that the surface of a biomaterial is the interface between the biological environment and the biomaterial, and so, the state-of-the-art in instrumentation, experimental protocols, and data analysis methods need to be developed so that the detailed surface structure and composition of biomedical devices can be determined and related to their biological performance
Summary
The beginning of modern biomedical surface analysis can be traced back several decades. While the origins and importance of surfaces have a much longer history, the earliest surface analysis studies on biomedical materials were done 30–40 years ago. These early biomedical surface analysis studies typically used a single technique, such as x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS, known as electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis or ESCA), to investigate a homogeneous material. As polymers were used in some of the very first biomaterials and continue to be extensively used in biomedical applications, many of the early biomedical surface analysis studies were done on polymeric materials. These studies focused on characterizing polymers with well-defined functionalities (acrylics, fluorocarbons, aromatics, etc.) where the structure and functionality could be systematically varied. The structure and composition of a given polymer system could be varied and the effect of that change is monitored using surface analysis (e.g., surface composition using XPS) From these beginnings, biomedical surface analysis has expanded and increased in complexity in terms of both the techniques used, types of analyses carried out, and materials investigated.. Examples include generating depth profiles from angle-dependent XPS data and multivariate analysis (MVA) processing of ToF-SIMS data.22 These advances have allowed the complexity of the samples analyzed to continually expand from polymers to RF glow discharge deposited films to self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) to biorecognition materials to DNA/protein microarrays to biological cells/tissue sections to nanoparticles (NPs). While these examples will largely be drawn from the research done at NESAC/Bio for the past 30þ years, there are similar examples and advances that have been made by other biomedical surface analysis research groups around the world during this time period
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