FUNDAMENTALS OF BIOMATERIALS AND BIOCOMPATIBILITY - Advanced Biomaterials: Fundamentals, Processing, and Applications - page 4

Biological performance
of materials:

Inter-
actions

Host response
Material response

Structure/Composition/
Function relationships
in manufactured
and natural
materials

Living
materials
(patient)

Non-Living
materials

Foundation
disciplines

Engineering
physical sciences

Medicine
biological sciences

Figure 1.1. Concept triangle illustrating the synergistic interaction of Engineering and Bio-
logical science disciplines, involved in designing biomaterials. The schematic also demonstrates
the multidisciplinary approach of the science and technology of biomaterials. [Reproduced
from, J Black, in chapter: Biocompatibility: Defi nition and Issues, Biological Performance of
Materials: Fundamentals of Biocompatibility, CRC Press, US, 2006.]

be replaced by various biomaterials. In living humans, most orthopedic/pros-
thetic joints and dental restorations demand the use of hard tissue/cortical bone
or analogue materials, such as high-strength metals or high-hardness ceramics.
To this end, the use of softer polymeric materials is restricted to the cranial area,
blood vessels, heart valves, intraocular lenses, and so on.
In this section, the structure of this introductory chapter has been presented.
Section 1.3 discusses necessary biological terms and their importance as well as
the materials classifi cation with respect to host response. Specially, in subsections
1.3.1 and 1.3.2, the two important terms biomaterials and biocompatibility have
been defi ned and their implications are provided. In the subsequent subsection
(1.3.3), the host tissue response with biomaterials has been assessed critically.
In section 1.4, the cell-material interaction has been discussed with an aim
to provide a fundamental idea about the interactions of a specifi c cell line with
implanted materials. The next section (1.5) demonstrates the various in vitro and
in vivo experiments to determine the biocompatibility of the materials. In the
subsequent section (1.6), the steps involved in characterizing biomaterials are
discussed. At the close, the brief highlights of the various topic chapters under
' Fundamentals ' section is presented in section 1.7 .

1.3 SOME USEFUL DEFINITIONS AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS

1.3.1 Biomaterial
Broadly, biomaterials can be defi ned as synthetic materials, which have been
designed to induce a specifi c biological activity 6 . The major difference of