Cameron Wilson
  1. Current research activities

    2. The project aims to establish the role of protein adsorption in the response of bone-forming cells to specific implant material properties. In particular, the work examines the effects of the surface topography of titanium on specific protein adsorption, and the extent to which this governs cell responses. The ultimate aim is to determine a set of design criteria and/or assessment methods for materials to be integrated with bone. The project is also examining tissue culture methods suitable for accurately and reliably assessing cell response to biomaterials.

  2. Keywords

    3. Biomaterials, implant-tissue interface, protein adsorption, osteoblasts, surface topography, cell adhesion, cell proliferation, cell morphology.

  3. End-user applications

    • Orthopaedic / oral & maxillofacial implant design
    • Biomaterial research and development
    • Tissue engineering scaffold development
    • Biomaterial tissue culture research

  4. Key publications

    5. I. Deligianni DD, Katsala N, Ladas S, Sotiropoulou D, Amedee J and Missirlis YF. Effect of surface roughness of the titanium alloy Ti-6Al-4V on human bone marrow cell response and on protein adsorption. Biomaterials 2001;22:1241-1251.
    II. Howlett CR, Evans MD, Walsh WR, Johnson G and Steele JG. Mechanism of initial attachment of cells derived from human bone to commonly used prosthetic materials during cell culture. Biomaterials 1994;15:213-222.
    III. Brash JL and Horbett TA. Proteins at interfaces: an overview. In: Horbett TA and Brash JL, editors. Proteins at Interfaces II: Fundamentals and Applications. Washington, DC: American Chemical Society, 1995. pp. 1-23.
    IV. Nygren H. Initial reactions of whole blood with hydrophilic and hydrophobic titanium surfaces. Colloids Surfaces B: Biointerfaces 1996;6:329-333.
    V. Bowers KT, Keller JC, Randolph BA, Wick DG and Michaels CM. Optimization of surface micromorphology for enhanced osteoblast responses in vitro. Int. J. Oral Maxillofac. Implants 1992;7:302-310.

  5. Outreach activities

    6. Biofutures 2001, Biofutures 2002 – week-long forums introducing secondary school students to biomedical engineering and medical biotechnology

  6. Key organisation membership

    7. None as Yet

  7. Early career researcher?

    8. No.

  8. Young investigator?

    9. No.

  9. Skills and expertise

    • Tissue culture (standard & with biomaterials)
    • SDS-PAGE for adsorbed proteins
    • Fluorescence microscopy
    • Scanning electron microscopy
    • Mechanical engineering
    • Computer programming (Visual Basic, Pascal, FORTRAN)
    • Computer-Aided Design
    • Broad knowledge of biological and materials aspects of cell-biomaterial interface

  10. Specialist equipment and infrastructure

    • Animal tissue culture facilities (including human, primary and continuous cell lines).
    • Visible light, electron, fluorescence, confocal and atomic force microscopy.
    • Basic materials preparation facilities (grinding, polishing, etching, etc).
    • Universal testing machines – primarily for compressive and tensile mechanical testing.
    • X-ray diffraction.
    • Various vibrational spectroscopy equipment.
    • MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry.
    • Visible/UV light absorbance, luminescence and beta radiation plate readers.
      RT-PCR.
    • Gel (slab) electrophoresis.
    • Hardness testing.
    • X-ray photoelectron, Auger electron and secondary ion mass spectroscopy.
    • Radiolabelling of proteins.

© 2004

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