Concepts for Designing Tailored Thin Film Surfaces with Potential Biological Applications

NICOLÁS MUZZIO; OMAR AZZARONI; SERGIO E. MOYA; MIGUEL ÁNGEL PASQUALE

Multilayer Thin Films - Versatile Applications for Materials Engineering

Intechopen

Año: 2020; p. 1 - 19

The tailoring of surfaces with nanostructured thin films, where interfacial propertiescan be controlled at the nanoscale, offers multiple possibilities for biological applications.The design of thin films with appropriate properties to induce desired biologicalresponses at cell level requires the convergence of research from physics, chemistry,material science, biology, and medicine. Here, we will discuss the main surface propertiesthat determine the behavior of isolated cells, cell colonies, and tissues interactingwith a material. Surface roughness, morphological features, stiffness, wettability,chemical nature, and protein-surface interaction characteristics, as well as spatiotemporalheterogeneities, are expected to contribute to the desired biological performanceof a material. A brief review in relation to thin films for biological applications will bepresented. We will focus on examples in which basic rather simple processes play a keyrole in determining the triggering of a particular biological cell phenotype.