Engineered Bioactive Molecules

Abstract

The field of biamaterials is undergoing a paradigm change. Foundational work in this area focused on inert materials that induced a minimal biological response. However, it is now clear that this approach to biomaterial design neglects the tremendous opportunity of incorporating biological cues into the material to guide the biological response. This new strategy has been catalyzed by recent advances in understanding the structure and function of biomolecules that coordinate the complex cellular processes that ultimately lead to tissue development and regeneration. The field of biomaterials is now capitalizing on this new information by building materials that incorporate bioactive molecules into implanted devices, scaffolds for tissue engineering, drug and gene delivery vehicles, and cell culture supports. However, the naturally occurring biomolecules are typically reengineered into forms that are more facile, economical, efficacious, or robust. This work has established a novel conceptual approach to biomaterials design and created a new focus in the area of applied molecular engineering. This chapter reviews the classes of molecules that are being targeted for this purpose, the methods used for reengineering these molecules, and the applications in biomaterials and tissue engineering that have benefited from this approach.