Image of the month - January 2025
Cells on 3D-printed nitinol surface
By Dr. Jesús Ordoño
Contrary to the wheels of a Mars rover, the nitinol devices that we are fabricating are intended to be implanted in a body’s patient and the interaction of this material with its surrounding tissue, cells or blood is crucial for the success of the intervention. At the BCD group, we perform different surface treatments to improve its properties and device performance, thus achieving a better interaction of nitinol with its surroundings and decreasing the rate of device failure. Improvement of the corrosion resistance and degradability, reduced roughness, enhancement of biocompatibility or even a decrease in inflammatory responses are some of the achievements that our group has successfully obtained using different surface treatments on 3D-printed nitinol cardiovascular devices.
Image of the month - December 2024
Scaffold in Bioreactor with mechanical load.
Recorded by Yuyao Liu and Guillermo Dominguez.
PLA lattices were fabricated using FFF-based 3D printer by José Luis Jiménez.
Contrary to the wheels of a Mars rover, the nitinol devices that we are fabricating are intended to be implanted in a body’s patient and the interaction of this material with its surrounding tissue, cells or blood is crucial for the success of the intervention. At the BCD group, we perform different surface treatments to improve its properties and device performance, thus achieving a better interaction of nitinol with its surroundings and decreasing the rate of device failure. Improvement of the corrosion resistance and degradability, reduced roughness, enhancement of biocompatibility or even a decrease in inflammatory responses are some of the achievements that our group has successfully obtained using different surface treatments on 3D-printed nitinol cardiovascular devices.
Image of the month - November 2024
Summer in Madrid.
By Dr. Monica Echeverry-Rendon
In August 2021, a severe heat wave hit Spain, with reports claiming that cement temperatures reached up to 60 °C. Under such conditions, it was even possible to fry an egg in the sweltering midday sun. The image depicts a human osteoblast (Saos-2) attached to a titanium surface modified through plasma electrolytic oxidation. Titanium (Ti) is widely used in biomedical applications due to its excellent mechanical properties and high biocompatibility. Surface modification has become a promising approach to enhancing the osseointegration of titanium in orthopedic and dental applications. Plasma electrolytic oxidation (PEO) is an electrochemical technique that, by controlling parameters such as voltage, current, electrolyte composition, and reaction time, enables the creation of various surface morphologies and configurations. These modifications have a direct impact on cellular behavior, ultimately improving tissue-material interactions.
