Biomaterials play an integral role in medicine today—restoring function and facilitating healing
for people after injury or disease. Biomaterials may be natural or synthetic and are used in
medical
applications to support, enhance, or replace damaged tissue or a biological function. The first
historicaluse of biomaterials dates to antiquity, when ancient Egyptians used sutures made from
animal sinew. The modern field of biomaterials combines medicine, biology, physics, and
chemistry, and more recentinfluences from tissue engineering and materials science. The field
has grown significantly in the past decade due to discoveries in tissue engineering, regenerative
medicine, and more.
Metals, ceramics, plastic, glass, and even living cells and tissue all can be used in creating a
biomaterial.They can be reengineered into molded or machined parts, coatings, fibers, films,
foams, and fabrics for use in biomedical products and devices. These may include heart valves,
hip joint replacements, dental implants, or contact lenses. They often are biodegradable, and
some are bio-absorbable, meaning they are eliminated gradually from the body after fulfilling a function.
Hydrogel sealants may allow
pain-free dressing changes for
patients with burns. Grinstaff lab,
Boston University.
How are biomaterials used in current medical practice?
Doctors, researchers, and bioengineers use biomaterials for the following broad range of applications:
• Medical implants, including heart valves, stents, and grafts; artificial joints, ligaments, and tendons; hearing loss
implants; dental implants; and devices that stimulate nerves.
• Methods to promote healing of human tissues, including sutures, clips, and staples for wound closure, and dissolvable
dressings.
• Regenerated human tissues, using a combination of biomaterial supports or scaffolds, cells, and bioactive molecules.
Examples include a bone regenerating hydrogel and a lab-grown human bladder.
• Molecular probes and nanoparticles that break through biological barriers and aid in cancer imaging and therapy at the
molecular level.
• Biosensors to detect the presence and amount of specific substances and to transmit that data. Examples are blood
glucose monitoring devices and brain activity sensors.
• Drug-delivery systems that carry and/or apply drugs to a disease target. Examples include drug-coated vascular stents
and implantable chemotherapy wafers for cancer patients.
What technologies are NIBIB-funded researchers developing with biomaterials?
Biomaterials designed for function
Bioengineers measure the function of a biomaterial by how well it performs a specific action and
how it will be used. A wound healing system must promote skin growth and blood vessel
formation. Bone replacement material must support cell attachment and facilitate bone growth.
A new family of fibrous protein systems: Stem cells are not specialized, so they have the
potential to transition into any specific kind of cell under the right conditions. Biomaterials can be
used to control stem cell fate and function. NIBIB-funded researchers are working to combine silk
with tropoelastin, a highly elastic and dynamic structural protein to construct a panel of protein
biomaterials. These materials must mimic the elasticity of diverse tissue structures and,
consequently, control biological function, particularly the differentiation of stem cells.
Smart wound dressing for treating chronic diabetic ulcers: Patients with diabetic ulcers that
don’t heal experience decreased quality of life, infections, amputations, and death. NIBIB-funded
researchers are developing a smart wound dressing that can deliver oxygen and blood vesselpromoting biochemical factors while monitoring healing. Combining electronics, wound healing,
microfabrication, biomaterials, and drug delivery, the dressing integrates sensors and actuators in
close contact to skin. It is expected to promote healing while reducing unnecessary dressing replacements and visits to medical
facilities.
Laser welding and repair of ruptured tissues: One quarter of patients who undergo surgery to rejoin segments of their colon
experience subsequent wound site leakage. NIBIB- funded researchers are pursuing a laser-welding technique for colon repair as
an alternative to suturing or stapling. The procedure uses photothermal nanocomposites—nano-sized material and gold rods
embedded in a matrix that when heated with a laser can fuse with ruptured tissues.
Dissolvable dressing for the treatment of burns: Burn patients experience acute pain when undergoing dressing removal.
Current clinically approved dressings stick to the wound surface, traumatizing newly formed tissue and delaying healing. NIBIBfunded researchers are developing a hydrogel dressing that will automatically dissolve, provide a barrier to infection, and
promote healing. By dissolving into safe by-products in a controlled way, the hydrogel will permit on-demand dressing removal
and re-exposure of the wound without the need for mechanical debridement and cutting, resulting in easier, less traumatic
treatment.
Biomaterials designed for biocompatibility
Biocompatibility is a measure of how a material interacts in the body with the surrounding cells, tissues
and other factors. A biomaterial is considered to have good biocompatibility if it does not trigger too strong
of an immune response, resists build-up of proteins and other substances on its surface that would hinder
its function and is resistant to infection.
Dissolvable zinc stents: Metal stents are commonly used to keep blood vessels open, but stents can cause
long-term complications, including re-narrowing of the vessel, blood clots, and bleeding. NIBIB-funded
researchers are developing a bio-absorbable zinc stent that harmlessly erodes away over time, minimizing
the normal chronic risks associated with permanent stents. Early testing with absorbable zinc stents has
been promising.
Self-sufficient power supply for implantable biomedical devices: A biomedical device lasts only as long
as its battery. NIBIB-funded researchers aim to overcome that limitation by harvesting energy from the
human body to power implantable biomedical devices. They are currently exploring innovative
nanotechnology to develop ultrathin, lightweight, stretchable, and bio-compatible membranes. The
membranes can efficiently and discreetly convert mechanical energy generated within the human body to
electrical energy, resulting in a self-sufficient power supply.
Zinc stent is dissolvable
and resists corrosion.
Photo by Sarah Bird,
Michigan Tech.
What are some important areas for future research on biomaterials?
Immunomodulation is an adjustment of the immune
response to a desired level: Immunomodulating
biomaterials may help to tackle widespread chronic
diseases such as type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease
where the body’s defense destroys insulin- producing cells
in the pancreas. Researchers recently developed an
injectable, synthetic biomaterial that reversed type 1
diabetes in non-obese diabetic mice—an important step in
developing a biodegradable platform to help control the
effects of the disease.
Injectable biomaterials are being used increasingly for the
delivery of therapeutic agents such as medicine, genetic
materials, and proteins. They offer the possibility to treat a
NIBIB Contacts
National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering
6707 Democracy Blvd., Suite 200
Bethesda, MD 20892
variety of conditions by providing targeted delivery while
avoiding uptake by the immune system. Research currently
underway using both synthetic and naturally derived
injectable biomaterials may one day be used to treat bone
defects, cancer, and heart attacks.
Supramolecular biomaterials—complexes of molecules
that exceed the limits of what molecules can do on their
own—have the potential to both sense and respond, making
them ideal materials for treating injury or disease.
Researchers are exploring the development of
supramolecular biomaterials that can be turned on or off in
response to physiological cues or that mimic natural
After ALL That - Anything to Remove Graphene Oxide? Otherwise You’ve eloquently described the Large Pharma Profiteering Band Wagon - That is the “Self Licking Lolly” that got us into this mess in the First place! Check Out DARPA!!
Nano has the ability to out smart us and change its course to resist our protocols. It seems that every time I start something new and its working well, it stops working before the Nano is removed. The best thing I've done is take Empson salt and vinegar baths making the water as hot as I can stand it baths. The salt enters and shrinks the cells, pushing the nano out. Check out Tony Pantalleresco nano bucket. So far we can only manage this. Stay positive! We'll figure this all out soon.
Ive read that donating plasma is a good way to remove the graphene from the blood but have yet to try it myself , its only been theorized here on substack. Could be worth trying for a month or two
Combination of glutathione and citrate can be one of the candidates for nanotoxicity alleviating drug against MNPs@SiO2(RITC) induced detrimental effect, including elevation of intracellular reactive oxygen species level, activation of microglia, and reduction in glucose uptake efficiency. In addition, our findings indicate that an integrated triple omics approach provides useful and sensitive toxicological assessment for nanoparticles and screening of drug for nanotoxicity.
I hadn't seen milk thistle as specifically a detox agent, rather as a liver support. That is my assumption anyway, that it supports the liver while something else combines with and mobilizes toxins to get them out of the body. I have been using some off label anti-parasitics as cancer treatment, and my liver enzymes had exceeded the normal range, meaning the liver was stressed, either by the dead parasites or by the treatments themselves. I have used milk thistle alongside these other treatments to soothe my liver and bring the enzyme readings back down - successfully. I have not tried, in this article, to outline a heavy metal detox protocol, just identify some detox products that might interfere with graphene oxide.
Thank you for all your efforts and for making this available to us. We are in your debt.
One of the practical problems I see is that even if citizen investigators wanted to do a controlled clinical trial of various modalities, there is no established (in the public domain) method for determining what nanoparticulate load a given person has. This would need to be assessable prior to commencing any such trial. Live blood analysis appears to provide some information (as nanoparticulates self-organize and self-assemble into larger objects), but it is limited in being able to visualize only microscopic objects (sometimes down to roughly 500 nanometers depending on the optics) or larger. As you point out, nano-particulates are significantly smaller than that. In the absence of EM, mass-spec and micro-Raman equipment, such an undertaking seems to be beyond the ability of citizen investigators but should be discussed in more detail by any interested parties.
Wow! This is an awesome and informative post! Thank you so much for all you time and research! I am so grateful there are people like you who want to educate and inspire others. We are all working towards the same goal and I hope we all will work together to get there.
Well thank you. Doing this has its benefits for me as well. I think I know a lot about a subject but when I come to writing it I realise how much I don’t know. I feel much happier with my “intuitive” choice of detox agents now that I have researched all the rest. I got it right - as far as I can tell.
m~ National Institute of
Biomedical Imaging
and Bioengineering
Biomaterials
APRIL 2022
What are biomaterials?
Biomaterials play an integral role in medicine today—restoring function and facilitating healing
for people after injury or disease. Biomaterials may be natural or synthetic and are used in
medical
applications to support, enhance, or replace damaged tissue or a biological function. The first
historicaluse of biomaterials dates to antiquity, when ancient Egyptians used sutures made from
animal sinew. The modern field of biomaterials combines medicine, biology, physics, and
chemistry, and more recentinfluences from tissue engineering and materials science. The field
has grown significantly in the past decade due to discoveries in tissue engineering, regenerative
medicine, and more.
Metals, ceramics, plastic, glass, and even living cells and tissue all can be used in creating a
biomaterial.They can be reengineered into molded or machined parts, coatings, fibers, films,
foams, and fabrics for use in biomedical products and devices. These may include heart valves,
hip joint replacements, dental implants, or contact lenses. They often are biodegradable, and
some are bio-absorbable, meaning they are eliminated gradually from the body after fulfilling a function.
Hydrogel sealants may allow
pain-free dressing changes for
patients with burns. Grinstaff lab,
Boston University.
How are biomaterials used in current medical practice?
Doctors, researchers, and bioengineers use biomaterials for the following broad range of applications:
• Medical implants, including heart valves, stents, and grafts; artificial joints, ligaments, and tendons; hearing loss
implants; dental implants; and devices that stimulate nerves.
• Methods to promote healing of human tissues, including sutures, clips, and staples for wound closure, and dissolvable
dressings.
• Regenerated human tissues, using a combination of biomaterial supports or scaffolds, cells, and bioactive molecules.
Examples include a bone regenerating hydrogel and a lab-grown human bladder.
• Molecular probes and nanoparticles that break through biological barriers and aid in cancer imaging and therapy at the
molecular level.
• Biosensors to detect the presence and amount of specific substances and to transmit that data. Examples are blood
glucose monitoring devices and brain activity sensors.
• Drug-delivery systems that carry and/or apply drugs to a disease target. Examples include drug-coated vascular stents
and implantable chemotherapy wafers for cancer patients.
What technologies are NIBIB-funded researchers developing with biomaterials?
Biomaterials designed for function
Bioengineers measure the function of a biomaterial by how well it performs a specific action and
how it will be used. A wound healing system must promote skin growth and blood vessel
formation. Bone replacement material must support cell attachment and facilitate bone growth.
A new family of fibrous protein systems: Stem cells are not specialized, so they have the
potential to transition into any specific kind of cell under the right conditions. Biomaterials can be
used to control stem cell fate and function. NIBIB-funded researchers are working to combine silk
with tropoelastin, a highly elastic and dynamic structural protein to construct a panel of protein
biomaterials. These materials must mimic the elasticity of diverse tissue structures and,
consequently, control biological function, particularly the differentiation of stem cells.
Smart wound dressing for treating chronic diabetic ulcers: Patients with diabetic ulcers that
don’t heal experience decreased quality of life, infections, amputations, and death. NIBIB-funded
researchers are developing a smart wound dressing that can deliver oxygen and blood vesselpromoting biochemical factors while monitoring healing. Combining electronics, wound healing,
microfabrication, biomaterials, and drug delivery, the dressing integrates sensors and actuators in
Smart wound dressing is thin
and flexible with an array of pH
sensors, thermo-responsive
drug carriers, and an onboard
controller. Source:
Khademhosseini Lab, HarvardMIT.
www.nibib.nih.gov
Biomaterials, page 2
close contact to skin. It is expected to promote healing while reducing unnecessary dressing replacements and visits to medical
facilities.
Laser welding and repair of ruptured tissues: One quarter of patients who undergo surgery to rejoin segments of their colon
experience subsequent wound site leakage. NIBIB- funded researchers are pursuing a laser-welding technique for colon repair as
an alternative to suturing or stapling. The procedure uses photothermal nanocomposites—nano-sized material and gold rods
embedded in a matrix that when heated with a laser can fuse with ruptured tissues.
Dissolvable dressing for the treatment of burns: Burn patients experience acute pain when undergoing dressing removal.
Current clinically approved dressings stick to the wound surface, traumatizing newly formed tissue and delaying healing. NIBIBfunded researchers are developing a hydrogel dressing that will automatically dissolve, provide a barrier to infection, and
promote healing. By dissolving into safe by-products in a controlled way, the hydrogel will permit on-demand dressing removal
and re-exposure of the wound without the need for mechanical debridement and cutting, resulting in easier, less traumatic
treatment.
Biomaterials designed for biocompatibility
Biocompatibility is a measure of how a material interacts in the body with the surrounding cells, tissues
and other factors. A biomaterial is considered to have good biocompatibility if it does not trigger too strong
of an immune response, resists build-up of proteins and other substances on its surface that would hinder
its function and is resistant to infection.
Dissolvable zinc stents: Metal stents are commonly used to keep blood vessels open, but stents can cause
long-term complications, including re-narrowing of the vessel, blood clots, and bleeding. NIBIB-funded
researchers are developing a bio-absorbable zinc stent that harmlessly erodes away over time, minimizing
the normal chronic risks associated with permanent stents. Early testing with absorbable zinc stents has
been promising.
Self-sufficient power supply for implantable biomedical devices: A biomedical device lasts only as long
as its battery. NIBIB-funded researchers aim to overcome that limitation by harvesting energy from the
human body to power implantable biomedical devices. They are currently exploring innovative
nanotechnology to develop ultrathin, lightweight, stretchable, and bio-compatible membranes. The
membranes can efficiently and discreetly convert mechanical energy generated within the human body to
electrical energy, resulting in a self-sufficient power supply.
Zinc stent is dissolvable
and resists corrosion.
Photo by Sarah Bird,
Michigan Tech.
What are some important areas for future research on biomaterials?
Immunomodulation is an adjustment of the immune
response to a desired level: Immunomodulating
biomaterials may help to tackle widespread chronic
diseases such as type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease
where the body’s defense destroys insulin- producing cells
in the pancreas. Researchers recently developed an
injectable, synthetic biomaterial that reversed type 1
diabetes in non-obese diabetic mice—an important step in
developing a biodegradable platform to help control the
effects of the disease.
Injectable biomaterials are being used increasingly for the
delivery of therapeutic agents such as medicine, genetic
materials, and proteins. They offer the possibility to treat a
NIBIB Contacts
National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering
6707 Democracy Blvd., Suite 200
Bethesda, MD 20892
variety of conditions by providing targeted delivery while
avoiding uptake by the immune system. Research currently
underway using both synthetic and naturally derived
injectable biomaterials may one day be used to treat bone
defects, cancer, and heart attacks.
Supramolecular biomaterials—complexes of molecules
that exceed the limits of what molecules can do on their
own—have the potential to both sense and respond, making
them ideal materials for treating injury or disease.
Researchers are exploring the development of
supramolecular biomaterials that can be turned on or off in
response to physiological cues or that mimic natural
biological signaling.
Phone: 301-496-8859
info@nibib.nih.gov
www.nibib.nih.gov
www.nibib.nih.gov
"'91\\. National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering _________
After ALL That - Anything to Remove Graphene Oxide? Otherwise You’ve eloquently described the Large Pharma Profiteering Band Wagon - That is the “Self Licking Lolly” that got us into this mess in the First place! Check Out DARPA!!
https://www.nibib.nih.gov/research-funding/division-discovery-science-technology-ddst
Nano has the ability to out smart us and change its course to resist our protocols. It seems that every time I start something new and its working well, it stops working before the Nano is removed. The best thing I've done is take Empson salt and vinegar baths making the water as hot as I can stand it baths. The salt enters and shrinks the cells, pushing the nano out. Check out Tony Pantalleresco nano bucket. So far we can only manage this. Stay positive! We'll figure this all out soon.
Ive read that donating plasma is a good way to remove the graphene from the blood but have yet to try it myself , its only been theorized here on substack. Could be worth trying for a month or two
Latest item I found.
........
Conclusions
Combination of glutathione and citrate can be one of the candidates for nanotoxicity alleviating drug against MNPs@SiO2(RITC) induced detrimental effect, including elevation of intracellular reactive oxygen species level, activation of microglia, and reduction in glucose uptake efficiency. In addition, our findings indicate that an integrated triple omics approach provides useful and sensitive toxicological assessment for nanoparticles and screening of drug for nanotoxicity.
https://particleandfibretoxicology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12989-021-00433-y
Hi, Christine. Another great article. My wife strongly urged you to include 11: milk thistle.
I hadn't seen milk thistle as specifically a detox agent, rather as a liver support. That is my assumption anyway, that it supports the liver while something else combines with and mobilizes toxins to get them out of the body. I have been using some off label anti-parasitics as cancer treatment, and my liver enzymes had exceeded the normal range, meaning the liver was stressed, either by the dead parasites or by the treatments themselves. I have used milk thistle alongside these other treatments to soothe my liver and bring the enzyme readings back down - successfully. I have not tried, in this article, to outline a heavy metal detox protocol, just identify some detox products that might interfere with graphene oxide.
Thank you for all your efforts and for making this available to us. We are in your debt.
One of the practical problems I see is that even if citizen investigators wanted to do a controlled clinical trial of various modalities, there is no established (in the public domain) method for determining what nanoparticulate load a given person has. This would need to be assessable prior to commencing any such trial. Live blood analysis appears to provide some information (as nanoparticulates self-organize and self-assemble into larger objects), but it is limited in being able to visualize only microscopic objects (sometimes down to roughly 500 nanometers depending on the optics) or larger. As you point out, nano-particulates are significantly smaller than that. In the absence of EM, mass-spec and micro-Raman equipment, such an undertaking seems to be beyond the ability of citizen investigators but should be discussed in more detail by any interested parties.
Once again, thank you for all you are doing.
Yes, I have no idea how to address the science of this.
What about donating blood? Would that be considered ethical in your opinion?
Don't know how we deal with blood bank issues.
I'm budgeting to buy you a cup of coffee next month just for the help this post gives me! Thank you for this work.
Thank you for sharing your research, Christine. Great work!
Wow! This is an awesome and informative post! Thank you so much for all you time and research! I am so grateful there are people like you who want to educate and inspire others. We are all working towards the same goal and I hope we all will work together to get there.
Well thank you. Doing this has its benefits for me as well. I think I know a lot about a subject but when I come to writing it I realise how much I don’t know. I feel much happier with my “intuitive” choice of detox agents now that I have researched all the rest. I got it right - as far as I can tell.