Wang\nChunming, an associate professor in the Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences\nat the University of Macau (UM), in collaboration with Prof Dong Lei at Nanjing\nUniversity and senior dental surgeon Dr Yu Na at National Dental Centre\nSingapore, has devised a biomaterial coating that can improve bone-to-implant\nintegration (\u2018osseointegration\u2019) under osteoporotic conditions, by switching on\nand off local inflammation in response to the healing process. With successful\nclinical application, this technology can initiate osseointegration more\nquickly in older patients for dental implantation. This study has been\npublished in Advanced Functional Materials<\/i>, a top international journal\nin the field of materials science.<\/p>
Tooth\nloss is one of the most common oral conditions among older adults, which\ncreates a pressing demand for dental implantation. Each year, millions of\ntitanium-based devices are implanted clinically for bone and dental repair.\nNevertheless, there is generally a higher prevalence of osteoporosis among\nolder adults, and osteoporosis can lead to thinned alveolar bones and persistent\ninflammation, which can substantially impair osseointegration. To meet the\nchanging needs for inflammatory niches throughout the different stages of\nhealing, the UM team designed an innovative bio-responsive glucomannan coating\nchemically grafted onto the titanium surface. This coating could sequentially\nturn on and off local inflammation to promote tissue healing. During the early\nstages of implantation, the glycans specifically activate macrophages at the\ndefect site to produce a signal that promotes bone cell maturation\n(\u2018switch-on\u2019); the gradually matured bone cells then secrete another signal to\nrelease \u2018sugar-coated bullets\u2019 from underneath the coating, which selectively\neliminates inflammatory macrophages (\u2018switch-off\u2019) to achieve optimal regeneration.<\/p>
\nProf Wang says that for decades, modulation of immune responses to medical\nimplants has been a challenging issue for both researchers and clinical practitioners.\nIn 2018, his team published a proof-of-concept study in Advanced Functional Materials<\/i>, on the successful turning-on of\nimmune cell activity by glycobiology signals for tissue repair; today, their\nlatest work has gone further by achieving \u2018full control\u2019 \u2013 with both turning on\nand off of the therapeutic signals in vivo, which may provide new biochemical\nstrategies for tissue repair under complex pathological conditions. The team\nwill actively seek opportunities to validate this strategy through efficacy and\nsafety studies in larger animals, in order to accelerate clinical translation.<\/p>
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTwo UM Macao Postdoctoral Fellows,\nDr Wang Zhenzhen and Dr Niu Yiming, are the co-first authors of the paper. Ms Yin\nXiaoyu, a master\u2019s student at UM, and Ms Tian Xuejiao, a PhD student at Nanjing\nUniversity, along with several other students, have made important\ncontributions to this study. The study was funded by Macao Science and\nTechnology Development Fund (file number: 080\/2016\/A2), UM (file number: MYRG2019-00080-ICMS),\nand the National Natural Science Fund of China (file number: 32001069,\n32000935). <\/p>
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Source: Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences<\/p>
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Media Contact Information:<\/p>
Communications Office, University of Macau<\/p>
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Albee Lei Tel\uff1a(853) 88228004<\/p>
Judite Lam Tel\uff1a(853) 88228022<\/p>
Email\uff1aprs.media@um.edu.mo<\/p>
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UM Website\uff1awww.um.edu.mo <\/p>
<\/p>\n \n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wang Chunming, an associate professor in the Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences at the University of Macau (UM), in collaboration with Prof Dong Lei at Nanjing University and senior dental…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":216555,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n