This year in 2015 we celebrate ten years of Biointerphases. Over the past decade, this journal has been at the forefront of biointerface research, featuring pioneering work revealing biosurface interactions in a quantitative, well-characterized manner. Strategies toward designing novel biointerfaces and controlling biointeractions have also been emphasized. Interest in further understanding and mediating the biointerface continues to grow tremendously, but there is still much work to be done. As we look toward the next ten years, it will take the combined and interdisciplinary efforts of all of us as physicists, biologists, chemists, and engineers to gain new insights and make advancement toward harnessing the biological response to our intended therapies.
To support the active interest in biointerfaces, Biointerphases is also changing and growing. Biointerphases is thrilled to have Sally McArthur and Katharina Maniura newly on board as Associate Editors. Sally of Swinburne University in Australia serves as a resource in Asia while Katharina of Empa, the Swiss Federal Materials Science and Technology Institution in Switzerland, provides a base for Biointerphases in Europe. Together as a team of editors, we are diverse in technical expertise and scientific focus as well as with perspectives from academia, industry, and government labs. Overall, we are pleased with the significant increase in number of publications in Biointerphases this year and the continued high quality of the publications, sparking a growing impact factor.
Biointerphases Volume 10 of 2015 covers a wide range of topics relevant to the biointerface, highlighting growing fields through In Focus collections and featuring important topics. A few exciting publications are described here, but please browse the full volume to appreciate its breadth. One area of emerging interest is in finding ways to control the immune response to materials. A review describes ways to tune the immune response through native, biomimetic, and designer materials (Garapaty and Champion). The authors demonstrate an increased understanding of natural immune communication and function by studying the interaction between these materials and immune cells. Materials that have been proposed to modulate the immune response include extracellular vesicles, particles that mimic immune cells or pathogens, and hybrid designer molecules with multiple signaling functions, engineered to target and bind immune cell surface molecules. The findings could lead to the development of immune therapeutics for the treatment of infection, cancer, and autoimmune disease. Another area of rapidly growing interest is with the use and impact of nanoparticles in biological systems. A review article features nanodiamond and its unique combination of mechanical and optical properties (Shenderova and McGuire). The authors discuss nanodiamond particles structure, strategies for surface modification, electrokinetic properties in suspensions, and relevant bioapplications. Another publication focuses on silver nanoparticles, where the authors examine the structure, dissolution, and impact of particle exposure to macrophage cells (Munusamy et al.). The authors show it is important to understand the physicochemical characteristics of nanoparticles as the particles and silver dissolved from them affect the biological response.
The latest developments in surface analysis of biological and biomaterial interfaces are featured in Issue 1, 2015, with the In Focus collection on Bio Surface Analysis. An overview of the advances in tools and novel methods is given in an Editorial (Belu). One area with significant advances is time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) for analysis of tissue. TOF-SIMS is increasingly being used for identification and localization of biological species due to developments in cluster ion sources, and due to the molecular specificity and good spatial resolution of the technique. Two review articles give examples of mapping organic compounds, such as drugs and lipids, directly in cells and tissue in two and three dimensions (Bich, Touboul, and Brunelle; Fletcher). Another area of focus is protein interactions with material surfaces, as they play a critical role in many biotechnological applications, including diagnostics and delivery of therapeutics. In one article, the authors probe structure–function relationships of adsorbed proteins using circular dichroism spectropolarimetry, amino-acid labeling/mass spectrometry, and bioactivity assays (Thyparambil, Wei, and Latour). They show that complementary methods are critical in addressing the orientation, conformation, and accessibility of bioactive sites. Specifically, the authors evaluated the enzymatic activity of hen egg-white lysozyme on various model substrates and demonstrated changes in protein structure. Another group investigated marine biofilms on corroding metallic materials and demonstrated chemical and metabolomic imaging of them (Brauer et al.). They were able to correlate the corrosion damage of the steel to the chemical composition of the biofilms by combining light profilometry with laser ablation and solvent capture by aspiration mass spectrometric imaging and high-performance liquid chromatography mass spectrometry. The techniques may be used to probe the mechanisms that lead to microbially influenced corrosion.
Issue 2 puts a spotlight on the nascent field of plasma medicine. Guest Editors Satoshi Hamaguchi, Deborah O'Connell, and David Graves pulled together a collection of articles demonstrating the role of different types of gas plasma in treatment of biomaterial surfaces as well as advances in their use for medical therapies. They also wrote an Editorial on the topic (Graves, Hamaguchi, and O'Connell). Several publications discuss novel applications and outcomes of plasma modification of biomaterial surfaces, as well as plasma treatment of medical equipment and food. Gas plasma also play a major role in therapies that include treating infected tissue, wounds, and cancer, as low temperature plasmas can be safely applied to biological systems without causing thermal damage. One article discusses what is known about the mechanisms of action of plasmas against cancer cells and demonstrates results of a particular “plasma pencil” source in killing cancer cells (Laroussi, Mohades, and Barekzi). Another area of investigation is in understanding the major biologically active species produced by plasma sources. Through the use of reactive species, scavengers, and different buffer systems, potential biologically active species were identified using chemical and physical detection (Wende et al.).
Another collection of In Focus articles can be found in Issue 4, featuring recent developments in biomaterial surface modification, characterization, and evaluation of biological responses. Guest Editors Hans Griesser, Peter Kingshott, and Lisbeth Grøndahl brought together contributions from the Fifth International Symposium on Surface and Interface of Biomaterials (ISSIB) held in Sydney, Australia (Grøndahl, Kingshott, and Griesser). Antimicrobial coatings were a topic of interest at the meeting. In light of this, one publication demonstrates that the surface chemistry properties of nanofibrous membranes can be strategically tuned to control bacterial behavior (Abrigo, Kingshott, and McArthur). When the electrospun nanofibers were coated with different plasma polymers and exposed to Escherichia coli, the carboxylic acid-rich surface retained antibacterial activity and resulted in a high proportion of dead cells, while the hydrophilic amine rich surface showed the highest proportion of viable cell attachment. Other efforts to control the bioresponse were also demonstrated. For example, one group evaluated the efficacy of various nonfouling polymers for use with protein biosensors. A zwitterionic polymer was found to have greater capture efficiency, resulting in a higher signal-to-noise ratio when compared to traditionally used polyethylene glycol (Robinson et al.). The polymers were attached to microprojection arrays and showed selective capture of a dengue disease biomarker from the skin of infected mice.
In 2016, Biointerphases will continue to pursue novel and key developments at the biointerface. In addition, timely In Focus collections will provide insight into critical topics, including ions and solvation at biointerfaces, blood–biomaterial interactions, and nanoparticle interfaces. We hope these publications keep you informed of new discoveries at the biointerface, intrigued, and inspired!
