Fine tune of cellular behavior: multifunctional materials for medical implants
Bio-TUNE aims to develop innovative multifunctional materials to produce a new generation of medical implants with cell instructive and antibacterial potential.

In biomaterials science, it is well accepted that implant biointegration with surrounding tissues is a major goal. However, implant surfaces that facilitate cell adhesion, may also favor colonization of bacterial cells. Infection of biomaterials and subsequent biofilm formation can be catastrophic and significantly reduce patient quality of life, representing an emerging concern in healthcare.

On the other hand, research efforts devoted to inhibit bacterial colonization are frequently related to cytotoxic agents or treatments that do not positively affect host tissues. Hence, ideally, to enhance the long-term success of medical implants, biomaterial surfaces should reduce bacterial colonization levels without compromising the physiological functions of eukaryotic cells. Yet, the majority of current approaches tend to only focus on either improving cell adhesion or preventing bacterial infection but rarely explore a combined effect.

In Bio-TUNE we focus on multifunctional coatings to simultaneously address and mitigate both these problems. Thus, Bio-TUNE introduces a new mindset and different paradigms in the development of biomaterials to respond to unmet clinical needs.

Bio-TUNE ambitions to 1) Study and understand the interaction of eukaryotic cells with bacteria at the biophysical and biomolecular level; 2) To develop cell instructive and antibacterial surfaces via biochemical and topographical approaches; 3) Transfer this technology to medical implants.

We seek to decipher the mechanistic of eukaryotic and bacterial cell competition, generate new selective and multi-potential coatings and topographically-active patterns, and their technological transfer leading to a generation of advanced biomimetic materials for tissue regeneration and personalized medicine.