Biomaterials & Living Surfaces
Multifunctionality is a strong demand set to the next generation of materials. One way to cope with this trend is the use of biological materials and systems. The result from this research are biomaterials and living materials, which find their way into todays dental materials, sensor technolgy or textile production.
Contact: Dr. Dirk Mohn
State of the art dental composites are often inert and only intended for gluing. As there are several drawbacks, such as reduced attachment to dental hard tissue over time, our focus lies on the development of novel smart dental materials, which can be active at first and inert at a later stage. We use so-called bioactive glasses that can render classical dental materials into smart, bioactive materials. Bioactive glass particles with a high specific surface area and specific particle composition are used within dental materials to treat caries lesions, dentin hypersensitivity, root canal treatments, etc. Current projects are carried out in collaboration with the Center of Dental Medicine of the University of Zurich.
Publications in the area:
- Dent. Mater., 2014. external pageLink
- Int. Endo. J., 2013. external pageLink
- Int. Endo. J., 2010. external pageLink
- Acta Biomat., 2007. external pageLink
Contact: Konstantin Schulz-Schönhagen Nadine Lobsiger
Living organisms’ complex responses to environmental stimuli have spurred the development of synthetic materials that mimic many of these natural processes. Instead of synthetic biomaterials we directly incorporate living microorganisms such as fungi or bacteria in to a polymer enclosed matrix. The organisms cannot escape but still communicate with the outer environment through the nano-porous polymer layers by e.g. taking up nutrients or responding to threats by producing antibiotics. Besides keeping surfaces clean and sterile such a material could also serve as highly specific bio-sensors or even as bio-displays.
Publications in the area:
- Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2012. external pageLink
- Chem. Commun., 2012. external pageLink
- Biomaterials, 2015. external pageLink