Apatite-polymer composites for the controlled delivery of bone morphogenetic proteins

Current treatment of bone defects due to trauma, cancer, or degenerative spine diseases involves the implantation of a bone graft. Autografts, which are harvested from the patient's own body, are associated with problems of limited availability and surgical morbidity. The use of allografts obtained from donors is also not desirable due to the risks of disease transmission and the costs of maintaining bone banks. The ideal solution would be to regenerate native bone to fill the defects. A group of potent growth factors known as bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) have been hailed as alternatives to bone grafts due to their ability to elicit new bone formation. Clinical use of BMPs involves loading the protein solution onto collagen sponges and subsequent implantation. However, these conventional collagen carriers show rapid clearance of BMPs within [approx.] 2 weeks, whereas bone healing is a longer process, especially in higher mammals. The poor BMP retention in collagen sponges may explain the greater response variability in higher mammals, ranging from full bone bridging within weeks to no bone union. These sponges are also not capable of tunable or multifactor release that could benefit healing in certain anatomic sites, e.g. avascular sites and prolonged non-unions. Hence, the motivation of this thesis is to develop new carriers that allow more efficacious and flexible delivery of BMPs to achieve bone healing.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Yong, Tseh-Hwan

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Jackie Y. Ying and Michael Rubner.

• Materials Science and Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/33405

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/33405