Environmentally responsive polymer coatings have enormous potential uses in biotechnology, with applications ranging from self-cleaning surfaces to tissue engineering. Several high profile examples demonstrate the utility of thermally reversible Poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide) (PNIPAM) coatings in tissue engineering, because the polymer solubility transition (LCST) of 32°C is close to physiological temperature. However, we postulated that the inability to reproducibly fabricate efficient, thermally reversible bioadsorbant PNIPAM films was due to the limited knowledge of mechanism(s) underlying temperature sensitive bio-adsorption and its relationship to the polymer properties. This talk presents new findings that challenge a widely assumed model of protein (and cell) adhesion to PNIPAM films. These results identified the likely mechanism underlying rapid, reversible, temperature-depdendent protein (and cell adsorption) to these polymer coatings. Our findings further inspired the establishment of new design criteria for temperature responsive PNIPAM thin films that reproducibly switch bioadhesion.

Design rules for thermally reversible bioadhesive thin films

251st National Meeting (2016)

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