Facile biofouling-free lubricant-skin coatings for biomedical implants and biosensors
Jungmok Seo
School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
jungmok.seo@yonsei.ac.kr
Abstract
Implantable biomedical devices and biosensors have been widely adopted and developed for clinical for continuous monitoring of patients’ health status. When the biomedical biosensors are introduced to patient’s body, foreign body reaction occurs diminishing immune system, and the body becomes highly vulnerable to bacterial infection and complications. When bacteria adhere to the implants forming impenetrable biofilm to antibiotics, removal and treatment require reoperation accompanied by pain and economic burden. Also, fibrotic capsule due to immune response surrounds the implant hindering detection of bio-signals. Hence, anti-biofouling coating which could prevent adhesion of bacteria and immune cells has been of great interest. However, the durability, and the complex fabrication systems such as high vacuum chamber limited its usage.
Here, we developed anti-biofouling coating for biomedical implants including orthopedic implants and urethral catheter, neural probe with chemical modification. The developed coating exhibits excellent durability and anti-biofouling property while being facile to be coated on any materials with complex shapes. Briefly, the developed lubricant skin coating consists of three different layers; an adhesive polydopamine layer, perfluoropolymer (PFP) layer, and slippery lubricant layer to make surface highly repellent to biosubstances. All the fabrication process was done via liquid phase deposition allowing even 3D complex structure can be easily coated. The developed coating can be easily applied on currently used biomedical sensors and medical implants (i.e. orthopedic implants, urethral catheter, neural probe) while exhibiting super antibiofouling, and antibacterial property. The results demonstrate its great potential for clinical purposes, and biomedical biosensors where anti-biofouling coating is highly demanded to prevent biosubstances adhesion, and bacterial infection. It will be important to determine the functional lifetime of the coating in representative physiological conditions to validate it further.
Short Bio
Prof. Jungmok Seo is an assistant professor in the electrical and electronic engineering department at Yonsei University. He received his Bachelor’s and a Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Yonsei University. Then, he served as a postdoctoral research fellow at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. His research has been focused on the development of functional systems for bio-integrative applications using a nature-inspired approach. Especially, He is currently working on the development of electronic drugs using stimuli-responsive drug delivery systems and integrated biosensors as well as strategies to reduce implant foreign body response and bacterial infection which improve the longevity of the implantable devices.