Enamel-like stiffness achieved by poorly oriented nanocrystals in the capping tissue of Mexican beaded lizard osteoderms.

Osteoderms, skeletal structures in the skin, are found in many animals and serve diverse roles. In some lizards, the bony osteoderm has a capping tissue (CT) whose composition and structure remain unknown. Here, the composition and nanostructure of osteoderms from the Mexican beaded lizard (Heloderma horridum) are investigated.

Biomineral displays systematic spatially varying crystallographic properties in fibrolamellar bone as revealed by position resolved X-ray diffraction.

Bone contains diverse structures. In fast-growing large animals, fibrolamellar bone is formed first and is then gradually replaced by remodelled bone with secondary osteons. Using position-resolved X-ray diffraction and X-ray fluorescence as a 2D multimodal microscopy technique, the nature of biomineral nanocrystals is investigated in bovine bone.

Lyotropic liquid crystal elastomers for drug delivery.

Silicone elastomers like polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) possess a combination of attractive material and biological properties motivating their widespread use in biomedical applications. Development of elastomers with capacity to deliver active therapeutic substances in the form of drugs is of particular interest to produce medical devices with added functionality. In this work, silicone-based lyotropic liquid crystal elastomers with drug-eluting functionality were developed using PDMS and triblock copolymer (diacrylated Pluronic F127, DA-F127).

SAXS imaging reveals optimized osseointegration properties of bioengineered oriented 3D-PLGA/aCaP scaffolds in a critical size bone defect model.

Healing large bone defects remains challenging in orthopedic surgery and is often associated with poor outcomes and complications. A major issue with bioengineered constructs is achieving a continuous interface between host bone and graft to enhance biological processes and mechanical stability. In this study, we have developed a new bioengineering strategy to produce oriented biocompatible 3D PLGA/aCaP nanocomposites with enhanced osseointegration.

Micro-patterns of gold nanoparticles assembled by photovoltaic optoelectronic tweezers: application to plasmonic fluorescence enhancement.

Noble metal nanostructures are well-known for their ability to increase the efficiency of different optical or physical phenomena due to their plasmonic behavior. This work presents a simple strategy to obtain Au plasmonic patterns by optically induced nanoparticle assembly and its application as fluorescence enhancement platforms. This strategy is based on the so-called photovoltaic optoelectronic tweezers (PVOT) being the first time they are used for fabricating Au periodic micro-patterns.

In Situ Visualization of the Structural Evolution and Alignment of Lyotropic Liquid Crystals in Confined Flow.

Self-assembled materials such as lyotropic liquid crystals offer a wide variety of structures and applications by tuning the composition. Understanding materials behavior under flow and the induced alignment is wanted in order to tailor structure related properties. A method to visualize the structure and anisotropy of ordered systems in situ under dynamic conditions is presented where flow-induced nanostructural alignment in microfluidic channels is observed by scanning small angle X-ray scattering in hexagonal and lamellar self-assembled phases.