Ag/Si doped car­bon layer for bio-​medical ap­p­li­ca­ti­on - CarLa

Pro­ject sum­ma­ry

The CarLa pro­ject is a com­mon un­der­ta­king of PO­LAND and RO­MA­NIA con­cer­ning one aim where each sci­en­ti­fic part­ner con­ducts bio­lo­gi­cal and me­cha­ni­cal tests of new Ag/Si doped car­bon lay­ers de­po­si­ted onto me­di­cal Ti alloy using six dif­fe­rent me­thods in order to pro­vi­de to the mar­ket pro­ducts in a form of an­ti­mi­cro­bi­al me­di­cal im­plants with good me­cha­ni­cal pro­per­ties and abi­li­ty to ac­ce­le­ra­te the os­teo­in­te­gra­ti­on pro­cess. The role of in­dus­tri­al part­ners in the pro­ject is to ve­ri­fy the mo­di­fied im­plants under in­dus­tri­al con­di­ti­ons. Ac­cording to the Glo­bal Bio­ma­te­ri­als Mar­ket re­port (2009-​2014) pu­blished by the World Mar­ketand Mar­kets, every year around the world about 100,000 ar­ti­fi­cial heart val­ves, 200,000 pa­ce­ma­kers and 1 mil­li­on or­tho­pe­dic im­plants are im­plan­ted. The in­crea­se is due to the use of bio­ma­te­ri­als so­cial de­mand in­crea­se from 8% to 15%. Growth fac­tors are: aging po­pu­la­ti­on, in­crea­sed pu­blic awa­ren­ess, shorter ap­pro­val pro­cess of bio­ma­te­ri­als and com­pli­ca­ti­ons after the im­plan­ta­ti­on. This last pro­blem is wi­de­ly dis­cus­sed in li­te­ra­tu­re. It was pro­ved that most of post-​implantation com­pli­ca­ti­ons are cau­sed by the in­fec­tions and/or dis­or­ders in­du­ced by toxic re­ac­tions as a re­sult of re­lease of alloy ele­ments from the im­plant. The most ty­pi­cal are: dif­fi­cul­ties in wound he­a­ling, in­crea­se of bac­te­ri­al and fun­gal in­fec­tion risk, slow­down of os­teo­ge­nic cells ad­he­si­on, slack of prosthe­sis due to bone disap­pearan­ce around im­plant or all­er­gic der­mal ecze­ma. It is esti­ma­ted that al­l­er­gy pro­blem in im­plan­to­lo­gy will be in­crea­sing for the next ge­nera­ti­ons. Ac­cordin­gly the post-​implantation com­pli­ca­ti­ons have not only cli­ni­cal but also eco­no­mic con­se­quen­ces. Cli­ni­cal con­se­quen­ces are: lon­ger pe­ri­od of an­ti­bio­tic the­ra­py and re­pea­ted sur­gi­cal pro­ce­du­res, dis­abi­li­ty or even death. Eco­no­mic ef­fects are di­rect­ly re­la­ted to elon­ga­ti­on of cli­ni­cal pro­ce­du­res and ge­ne­ra­te ad­di­tio­nal costs (sever­al bil­li­on € an­nu­al­ly th­roug­hout Eu­ro­pe). Ta­king above into con­side­ra­ti­on it is pro­fi­ta­ble to con­duct pro­po­sed re­se­arch and work­ed out new so­lu­ti­on which being pro­po­sed on the mar­ked give pa­ti­ents bet­ter/safer pro­ducts and lower cost of cli­ni­cal tre­at­ment. In this con­nec­tion the main ob­jec­ti­ve of the pro­ject is ma­nu­fac­tu­ring of Ag/Si doped C coa­tings onto the ti­ta­ni­um alloy me­di­cal im­plants. The in­no­va­ti­on of pro­po­sed so­lu­ti­on is based on si­mul­ta­ne­ous in­tro­duc­tion to the car­bon coa­ting two ele­ments with dif­fe­rent pro­per­ties. This will re­sult in the im­pro­vement of the exis­ting so­lu­ti­ons and also broa­den the range of their pos­si­ble uses. The pre­sence of sil­ver in the coa­ting will en­su­re a broad spec­trum of an­ti­mi­cro­bi­al ac­tion, though pro­tec­ting the im­plant against the dis­ad­van­ta­ge­ous in­flu­ence of bac­te­ria and fungi causing bio­film as­so­cia­ted in­fec­tions, local in­flamma­ti­on and other implant-​tissue re­ac­tions. The ad­di­ti­on of si­li­con will lead to the en­han­ce­ment of me­cha­ni­cal pro­per­ties of the coa­ting and pro­mo­te os­teo­in­te­gra­ti­on. This will re­sult in shor­ten­ing the he­a­ling pro­cess of pa­ti­ents and allow using of pro­po­sed so­lu­ti­on for the mo­di­fi­ca­ti­on of the long-​term im­plants sur­faces. De­spi­te of the fact that the sub­ject of do­ping of car­bon coa­tings by dif­fe­rent ele­ments is on the Eu­ropean sci­en­ti­fic map and many re­se­arch re­sults can be found in this field, there is a lack of re­ports con­cer­ning the me­cha­ni­cal and bio­lo­gi­cal pro­per­ties of Ag/Si doped car­bon lay­ers syn­the­si­zed with use of the tech­no­lo­gies pro­po­sed in CarLa. The re­sults of this pro­ject will bridge the gap in the state of the art of sub­mi­cron struc­tu­res mo­di­fi­ca­ti­ons. The high sci­en­ti­fic level of the pro­po­sed pro­ject, the no­vel­ty of the sci­en­ti­fic pro­blem to be un­der­ta­ken, and well-​composed team of pro­fes­sio­nals with com­ple­men­ta­ry ex­per­ti­se and big ex­pe­ri­ence in the work ent­rusted to them, en­su­res that the pro­ject will be im­ple­men­ted in a ti­me­ly man­ner and at the hig­h­est level of sci­ence and its re­sults will be pu­blished at top rank jour­nals and be im­ple­men­ted into the mar­ket.