Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Journal of Developmental Biology and Tissue Engineering (JDBTE)

Dear Colleague, The Journal of Developmental Biology and Tissue Engineering (JDBTE) is a multidisciplinary peer-reviewed journal published monthly by Academic Journals (www.academicjournals.org/JDBTE ).JDBTE is dedicated to increasing the depth of research across all areas of this subject.

JDBTE welcomes the submission of manuscripts that meet the general criteria of significance and scientific excellence in this subject area, and will publish: · Original articles in basic and applied research· Case studies· Critical reviews, surveys, opinions, commentaries and essays We invite you to submit your manuscript(s) to jdbte.journal@gmail.com for publication. Our objective is to inform authors of the decision on their manuscript(s) within four weeks of submission. Following acceptance, a paper will normally be published in the next issue. Instruction for authors and other details are available on our website;http://www.academicjournals.org/JDBTE/Instruction.htm

Editors and reviewers JDBTE is seeking qualified researchers to join its editorial team as editors, subeditors or reviewers. Kindly send your resume to jdbte.journal@gmail.com .

JDBTE is an Open Access Journal One key request of researchers across the world is unrestricted access to research publications.Open access gives a worldwide audience larger than that of any subscription-based journal ad thus increases the visibility and impact of published work. It also enhances indexing, retrieval power and eliminates the need for permissions to reproduce and distribute content. JDBTE is fully committed to the Open Access Initiative and will provide free access to all articles as soon as they are published. Best regards, Emebane ExcelEditorial AssistantJournal of Developmental Biology and Tissue Engineering (JDBTE)E-mail: jdbte.journal@gmail.comwww.academicjournals.org/JDBTE

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Research and Markets: U.S. Market for Orthopedic Biomaterials 2010 Reveals in 2009 the Orthopedic Biomaterials Market was Valued at Almost $3.5 Billio

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets(http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/e4f5eb/u_s_market_for_or) has announced the addition of the "U.S. Market for Orthopedic Biomaterials 2010 (Executive Summary)" report to their offering.

In 2009, the orthopedic biomaterials market was valued at almost $3.5 billion. The total orthopedic biomaterials market has experienced growth, despite the economic downturn, which began in 2008. The market started to spike in 2009 and peaked in 2010 largely driven by rapid growth in the stem cell, hyaluronic acid and synthetic bone graft substitute market segments.

This comprehensive report critically examines the following market segments:

  • Bone graft substitutes
  • Cartilage repair
  • Growth factors
  • Hyaluronic acid
  • Machined allografts
  • Resorbable fixation
  • Stem cells
  • Tendon grafts
  • Platelet rich plasma
  • Bone marrow concentration systems

This report provides a comprehensive and detailed analysis of market revenues by device type, market forecasts through 2016, unit sales, average selling prices, market drivers and limiters and a detailed competitive analysis, including manufacturer market shares and product portfolios.

Key Topics Covered:

Executive Summary

1.1 Total Orthopedic Biomaterials Market

1.2 Growth Factor And Bone Graft Substitute Market

1.3 Machined Bone Allograft Market

1.4 Hyaluronic Acid Viscosupplementation Market

1.5 Resorbable Fixation Device Market

1.6 Tendon Graft Market

1.7 Cartilage Repair Market

1.8 Platelet And Bone Marrow Concentration Market

1.9 Stem Cell Market

1.10 Leading Competitors

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/e4f5eb/u_s_market_for_or

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Introduction to Biotribology

The science of Tribology (Greek tribos: rubbing) concentrates on Contact Mechanics of Moving Interfaces that generally involve energy dissipation. It encompasses the science fields of Adhesion, Friction, Lubrication and Wear.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)) can be named as the father of modern tribology. He studied an incredible manifold of tribological subtopics such as: friction, wear, bearing materials, plain bearings, lubrication systems, gears, screw-jacks, and rolling-element bearings. 150 years before Amontons' Laws of Friction were introduced, he had already recorded them in his manuscripts. Hidden or lost for centuries, Leonardo da Vinci's manuscripts were read in Spain a quarter of a millennium later.

To the pioneers in tribology one counts besides Leonardo da Vinci also Guillaume Amontons (1663-1705), John Theophilius Desanguliers (1683-1744), Leonard Euler (1707-1783), and Charles-Augustin Coulomb (1736-1806). These pioneers brought tribology to a standard, and its laws still apply to many engineering problems today. Some of their findings are summarized in the following three laws:

1. The force of friction is directly proportional to the applied load. (Amontons 1st Law)

2. The force of friction is independent of the apparent area of contact. (Amontons 2nd Law)

3. Kinetic friction is independent of the sliding velocity. (Coulomb's Law)

These three laws were attributed to dry friction only, as it has been well known since ancient times that lubrication modifies the tribological properties significantly. However, it took quite a long time until lubrication was studied pragmatically and lubricants were not just listed such as a "cooking formula". It was Nikolai Pavlovich Petrov and Osborne Reynolds around 1880, who recognized the hydrodynamic nature of lubrication, and introduced a theory of fluid-film lubrication. Still today, Reynolds' steady state equation of fluid film lubrication

is valid for hydrodynamic lubrication of thick films (> mm) where the frictional (drag) force, F, is proportional to both the sliding velocity, v, and the bulk fluid viscosity h, and inversely proportional to the film lubricant thickness, D. The hydrodynamic theory breaks down below a critical thickness threshold that is expressed in the Stribeck-Curve (Richard Stribeck 1902).

In the twentieth century the theories of dry friction and lubricated friction were further developed. Solid-like behavior of lubricants in the ultrathin film regime (> mm) led to theory of Boundary Lubrication, which was proposed by W.B. Hardy (1919). The adhesion concept of friction for dry friction, already proposed by Desanguliers, was applied with great success by Bowden and Tabor to metal-metal interfaces.

Adhesion is a term relating to the force required to separate two bodies in contact with each other. Desanguliers (1734) proposed adhesion as an element in the friction process, a hypothesis which appeared to contradict experiments because of the independence of friction on the contact area (Amontons 2nd Law). Therefore the tribologists rejected Desanguliers' proposal and devoted their attention to a more geometrical hypothesis of friction, the interlocking theory of mechanical asperities. The contradiction between the adhesive issue and Amontons 2nd Law cleared up by the introduction of the concept of the real area of contact. The real area of contact is made up of a large number of small regions of contact, in the literature called asperities or junctions of contact, where atom-to-atom contact takes place. Bowden and Tabor (1954) showed that the force of static friction between two sliding surfaces is strongly dependent on the real area of contact. A very important outcome of their work, which led to the asperity contact theory of friction, is their detailed discussion about adhesive wear. In contrast to abrasive wear which applies to the form of wear arising when a hard, rough surface slides against a softer surface, in adhesive wear, asperity junctions plastically deform above a critical shear strength, which depends on the adhesive forces of the two surfaces in contact. Assuming during a frictional sliding process a fully plastic flow situation of all asperities, friction is found to change linearly with the applied load as demanded by Amontons 1st Law.

Bowden and Tabor investigated friction also from the perspective of a purely elastic sliding process. They used a simplified single asperity model of contact based on the Hertzian elastic theory, and found a non-linear friction-load dependence (F=L2/3), which clearly contradicted Amontons 1st Law and the experiments conducted at that time. It was Archard (1953), who recognized that there was no contradiction between an elastic single asperity model and Amontons 1st law that is based on a contact that involves many asperities. Instead of assuming a constant number of asperities as Bowden and Tabor did, Archard assumed a load dependent number of asperities. With this assumption the controversy between the elastic multiple asperity hypothesis and Amontons 1st Law could be resolved. Greenwood and Williamson further improved the method with a Gaussian and exponential distributions of asperities. With the inception of the atomic force microscope (AFM) and friction force microscope (FFM) Bowden and Tabor's single asperity elastic theory (F=L2/3) could be experimentally verified.

Reynolds fluid film lubrication bases strongly on the assumption that no slip occurs at the fluid solid interface. The condition of no-slip, today described by physical adsorption, brought Hardy to the idea of boundary lubrication. The boundary lubrication is only of molecular thickness. In most cases the lubricant thin film, which acts like a soft solid lubricant, shows incomplete coverage. Wear occurs at these breakthroughs exhibiting complex friction-load dependences. The term boundary lubricant is used for thin organic layer lubricants which can reduce the coefficient of friction by a factor of 20, and the rate of wear by 10,000 or more. Thermodynamic activation models based on Eyring's cage model have been used to describe the frictional phenomena in boundary lubrication of Langmuir Blodgett films (Briscoe, Evans: 1981), and simple fluid lubrication such as hexadecane (He, Overney: 2000).

The shear properties of thin fluid layers under external compressions have found great interest over the last two decades. Surface forces apparatus (SFA) studies, pioneered by Tabor, Israelachvili, McGuiggan and Gee, showed liquids to behave like solids, i.e., cable of storing energy. Interestingly, liquids under these conditions exhibit very high viscosities but unexpectedly low shear resistances.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

3rd Thesinge biofilm meeting

Thesinge biofilm meetings attempt to provide open, provocative discourse to stimulate thinking and creative approaches in a friendly, family-style atmosphere.There are no proceedings, only an abstract/program book, and active exchange.

What’s it about?

Biofilm research is booming since the field of application is extremely wide. Over the past decade, new techniques have become available for the basic study of interactions between microorganisms and surfaces to answer questions like:

•“What makes them stick? What causes them to detach? Why do they form a biofilm?”
Although the meeting is set-up to include all fields of application, primary focus is on biomaterials implant-related infections - the number one cause of implant failure.

Prevention of biofilm formation is the ultimate goal in nearly every field of application. This has stimulated a worldwide search for new antimicrobial surfaces and approaches.
The Thesinge meeting will highlight new developments in antimicrobial coatings:

•“Why silver? Do QUATS really work? What are options for antimicrobial-releasing coatings?”
Objectives/goals :All participants are asked to contribute intellectual and other creative input to inspiring new ideas, new approaches and new information to participants.

Let’s make sure that we do not surrender to the biofilm!
Come and help find new solutions.

http://www.rug.nl/umcg/faculteit/disciplinegroepen/biomaterialen/biofilmmeeting/index

Biofilms4 International Conference, 2010

Dear Biofilm researchers,

We are pleased to announce that the fourth International Biofilms Conference will be held in Winchester, U.K., from Wednesday 1st to Friday 3rd September, 2010.

Please check this site http://www.biofilms4.com/ regularly for updates or enter your email address here to be kept up to date of any new information.

If you have any queries of questions please feel free to contact the events organisers Kinetix Events at biofilms4@kinetixevents.co.uk

We look forward to seeing you at Biofilms4, 2010.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Post-doctoral scientist position in Biomaterials

Overview

A post-doctoral research scientist position (stipend) is available in the Division of Glycoscience at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden. The research will be conducted in the context of CarboMat – The KTH Advanced Carbohydrate Materials Consortium.

KTH is the largest technical university in Sweden. Education and research cover a broad spectrum within natural sciences and engineering, as well as architecture, industrial engineering and management, urban planning, work science and environmental engineering. There are circa 13,300 full-year undergraduate students, 1,500 postgraduate students and 3,900 employees.

budget of 30 MSEK over 5 years (2010-2014), including matching funding from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH). CarboMat is a multi-disciplinary program that involves the research of four professors at KTH in the Division of Glycoscience (School of Biotechnology) and Division of Biocomposites (School of Chemical Science and Engineering). The overall objective of the program is to harness carbohydrate enzymology, polysaccharide (bio)chemistry, and nanocomposite design to produce novel high-performance and environmentally sustainable materials from renewable biomass. Key target applications include bio-active and stimuli-responsive materials; innovative membranes for filtration, diagnostics and environmental remediation; and functional textiles and structural biocomposites.

Research project

The objectives of the research project are (1) the introduction of functionalized biopolymers in Gluconoacetobacter xylinus cultures for the production of cellulose nanofiber composites; (2) characterization to understand the relations between structure and properties; (3) to exploit applications in bio-molecular recognition and separation, responsive and active materials. The successful candidate is expected to play a leading role in a multi-disciplinary research team of postgraduate students and other post-doctoral scientists, both within CarboMat and through interactions with the newly formed Wallenberg Wood Science Center at KTH. The host laboratory offers state-of-the-art equipment and resources for achieving these objectives and has an established track record in these areas.

Requirements

The selected candidate must hold a Ph.D. degree (or equivalent) in composite or polymer science. Candidates with experience in carbohydrate chemistry and/or biochemistry will be strongly favored, and familiarity with NMR, XRD, SEM, TEM, and AFM is desirable.

To address its varied work, KTH aims to employ a diversity of talent and thus welcomes applicants who will add to the variety of the University, especially as concerns its gender structure.

Form of contract

Time-limited stipend

Start date

According to agreement

Application procedure

Closing date for application: March 19, 2010
Reference number: B-2010-0045, dossier 33

The application should include a cover letter with motivation and a detailed CV including the applicant’s degrees, post-doctoral experience, and other relevant research experience. In addition, candidates are asked to supply the names and full contact information for three (3) personal/professional references.

The application should be sent by e-mail to Asst. Prof. Qi Zhou

and Prof. Vincent Bulone

with a cc: to administrator Lotta Rosenfeldt (lottar@biotech.kth.se).

N.b.: Applicants are requested to specify the reference number above in the e-mail subject line.

Contact persons for further information

Asst. Prof. Qi Zhou or Prof. Vincent Bulone
Division of Glycoscience
School of Biotechnology
Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)
AlbaNova University Centre
106 91 Stockholm
Sweden

or

Tel: +46 8 5537 8383 (Asst. Prof. Zhou) or +46 8 5537 8841 (Prof. Bulone)

Organization website:

Union representative

Rikard Lingström, SACO
Phone: +46 8 790 8292

2010 Biomaterial Conferences

February

February 14-18, 2010 The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) 2010 Annual Meeting & Exhibition
Seattle, Washington
http://www.tmsorg/meetings/annual-10/AM10home.aspx


March

March 7-10 14th annual Hilton Head Workshop: Regenerative Medicine: Advancing to Next Generation Therapies
Hilton Head Island, SC
Abstract deadline: November 13, 2009
www.hiltonhead.gatech.edu


April

April 21-24: 2010 Society For Biomaterials Annual Meeting and Exposition Seattle, Washington

April 21–23 Bone Tissue: Hierarchical Simulations for Clinical Applications Workshop
UCLA campus, Los Angeles, California
http://ortho.ucla.edu/body.cfm?id=136
http://www.ipamucla.edu/programs/bone2010


May

May 27–29 ASAIO's 56th Annual Conference
Hilton Baltimore
www.asaio.com


August

August 11–14, 2010 Advances in Tissue Engineering Short Course
Rice University, Houston, Texas
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~mikosgrp/pages/ATE/ate.htm

The purpose of this meeting is to survey the latest knowledge and technologies in the world of patient-specific therapeutics – from transplantation of cells and tissues to artificial organs.


September

September 1–4 BIOSPINE 3 – 3rd Congress of Biotechnologies for Spinal Surgery organized by Regenerate (European Network for Regenerative Medicine)
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
www.biospine.org


November

November 7–12 Tenth International Conference on the Chemistry and Biology of Mineralized Tissues
Carefree Resorts, Carefree, Arizona
www.iccbmt.org

Advances in Tissue Engineering 2010

Advances in Tissue Engineering 2010
18th Annual Short Course

August 11 through 14, 2010
Rice University, Houston, Texas
Focusing on advances in the science and technology of tissue engineering
and featuring leading scientists from Rice University,
the Texas Medical Center, industry, and other institutions.

The course will survey the latest knowledge and technologies
in the world of patient-specific therapeutics -
from transplantation of cells and tissues to artificial organs.
Course Features
Program & Speakers

CONTACT AND INFORMATION

BIOTRIBOLOGY: The Tribology of Living Tissues

BIOTRIBOLOGY

The study of friction, lubrication and wear in biological systems, specifically articular joints.

As in man-made machines, excessive wear and tear of moving parts can cause grave breakdowns in the human body. When artificial materials such as polyethylene or titanium perform poorly in the real world of bone, muscle and blood, a special subset of tribologists are summoned. These specialists in biological friction and lubrication-called biotribologists-are helping medical researchers understand wear-related breakdowns and create treatments that get the body up and running again.

With 206 bones in the adult human body, powered by about 600 muscles, there is much to understand and much that can go wrong, tribologically speaking. In addition to bones and muscle, the body relies on many other moving parts: the beating heart, chewing teeth and blinking eyes. The body also produces its own unique lubricants-tears, saliva and synovial joint fluid-which biotribologists must understand as completely as their counterparts in machine labs grasp the properties of oil and synthetic lubricants.

"From a scientific viewpoint, there are many interesting questions about the tribology of moving tissues," says Myron Spector, professor of orthopedic surgery at Harvard Medical School. "In the human body many tissues move in relation to one another, and the body has to allow for that movement or the tissue will split and break down."

MAKING HIP REPLACEMENTS LAST

Artificial hips are widely considered the most successful advance in orthopedic surgery in the last 100 years. With its high success rate, hip replacement surgery offers people with diseased joints not only freedom from pain but also the chance to walk, run or even dance again. An estimated 300,000 people in the United States undergo hip-replacement procedure each year.

Still, the success is incomplete. Based on the wear characteristics of their component materials, artificial hips should last a patient's lifetime. But in reality these devices last only 12 to 15 years in the human body. Replacing them means another major surgery for the patient.