Is perfect research a myth?

One question pops into my mind, is it possible to conduct perfect research?

Then, I started reading some articles; one gripping article is presented here.

Whether it is possible to conduct perfect research or not is a controversial topic.

In 2005, Ioannidis wrote a paper titled “Why most published research findings are false” which is one of the most downloaded articles in PLOS Medicine. John Ioannidis employs mathematical concepts to demonstrate why published results are frequently incorrect. In simple terms, it’s about relying on significant p-values too often without considering the possibility of a false-positive result.

He listed six risk factors regarding the false results:

1. Small studies: “The smaller the studies conducted in a scientific field, the less likely the research findings are to be true”.

2. A small size of effect: “The smaller the effect sizes in a scientific field, the less likely the research findings are to be true”.

3. Testing many causal relationships simultaneously: “The greater the number and the lesser the selection of tested relationships in a scientific field, the less likely the research findings are to be true”.

4. Flexibility in study design: “The greater the flexibility in designs, definitions, outcomes, and analytical models in a scientific field, the less likely the research findings are to be true”.

5. Psychological bias: “The greater the financial and other interests and prejudices in a scientific field, the less likely the research findings are to be true”.

6. Hot research areas: “The hotter a scientific field (with more scientific teams involved), the less likely the research findings are to be true”.

When it comes to a query about whether we can improve the situation, he stated “it is impossible to know with 100% certainty what the truth is in any research question”. Rather we can work hard to improve the post-study probability. Finally, he suggested various countermeasures against the risk factor, concluding that research, by definition, is about making mistakes and striving to find a better approach. It is impossible to attain perfection. Many studies today indicate that he was correct.

What do you think?

This article was written by MM Raihan as part of an ongoing series of scientific communications written and curated by BioTrib’s Early Stage Researchers.

Raihan is researching In-situ Measurement of Nano-scale Wear Utilising Advanced Sensors at the University of Leeds, UK.

How to acknowledge EU funding?

Great piece from the EU Research Executive Agency about acknowledging your funding…. 🧐

If you have received EU funds, you are legally obliged to acknowledge them in your communications, dissemination and exploitation. To find out the differences between them please click on the following flyer and also see the image below.

Acknowledgement includes the display of:
🔷 EU Emblem
🔷 Funding statement ✍️

Super Innovation in Uppsala

Uppsala University and its Innovation hub have an enviable record of translating high-end science and engineering to the wider sector, with a few examples of this excellence provided here. The Uppsala Innovation Centre has been ranked in the global top five and has an extensive list of business start ups.

This article explains the role and services provide by Uppsala University Innovation and the support provided to students and researchers.  Importantly, the advisors have industrial experience which allows them to truly span the divide between academia and the commercial sector and can better identify the barriers and opportunities for the transfer of knowledge between sectors. 

Prof Cecilia Persson

Prof Cecilia Persson at Uppsala University, a BioTrib scientist in charge, has worked with Uppsala Innovation and the Innovation Centre closely, developing her new bone cement which will reduce the adverse effects of the current generation of injectables used to treat spinal fractures.

Simone De Beauvoir and Hard Maths!

I had to pinch myself a number of times this week to ensure I was not ensnared in some Kafkaesque nightmare. Katharine Birbalsingh CBE, Chair, Social Mobility Commission (yes, that is correct), decided to make a comment and relate hard maths in physics to the poor uptake amongst girls in this subject, not withstanding the latest round of results in A-level Mathematics.  The full select committee discussion can be found here, in which Katherine refers to anonymous research supporting her claims.  This got worse as our Chair decided to go on GB News (a common media outlet for Katharine) to explain that she had endeavoured to control for social factors, after which the only attribute left was the sex difference.  Clearly, Katharine couldn’t  have, effectively, excluded all these factors as many are outside her control, but that didn’t stop her professing her innocence.

A key aspect of the debate, to my mind, is not just about getting women in STEM careers, but that if they are excluded we get a world designed for men in an increasing technological age. Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez (review here) sets out cataloguing, through careful research, the lack of data and the lack of gender/sex disaggregation of that data, which then works in hand with the assumption that maleness and the male lens are neutral to discriminate against women. The effects of this data invisibility, arising from a lack of representation, in many technological spheres leads to profound inequalities for women, which impoverish them (and children) to an appalling extent.  This is made worse by the examples of good practice which are just ignored.  The book’s inescapable conclusion is best summed up by the quote at the beginning:

Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with the absolute truth.”   Simone De Beauvoir 

ASMO-UK12 / ASMO-Europe1 / ISSMO Conference on Engineering Design Optimization

ASMO-UK12 / ASMO-Europe1 / ISSMO Conference on Engineering Design Optimization

University of Leeds, UK

Monday 18 – Tuesday 19 July 2022

Design optimisation is critical in maximising the performance of engineered products for specific requirements, such strategies have been successfully employed to increase aerodynamic efficiency by reducing drag acting on road vehicles (Figure above), reducing the mass of aircraft wing structures while maintaining stiffness, and reducing friction in mechanical bearings while maintaining continuous operation.

Any engineered product will be more effective through the outcomes of design optimisation by adjusting the system variables which define geometry, materials, or operating conditions. This can provide significant benefit through trading one characteristic against another and spans a range of engineering challenges.

For biotribological products design optimisation is a necessary consideration to ensure the long-lasting and effective integration in the human body. Join us for the ASMO-UK 2022 Conference on Engineering Design Optimization (learn more and register here) hosted by the School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Leeds on 18th – 19th July 2022, abstract submission and registration are now open. We look forward to seeing you at event!

Featured figure:  Design optimisation of a road vehicle to minimise aerodynamic drag

(Another) new phase of matter discovered

(Another) new phase of matter discovered – a time crystal – even more interestingly, it has unusual properties that appear to suggest a perpetual cycle without breaking the laws of physics. Similar to how a crystal’s structure repeats in space, a time crystal repeats in time and does so infinitely and without any further input of energy.

This recent advancement was announced in Nature on Nov. 20 by a team of scientists from from Stanford University, Google Quantum AI, the Max Planck Institute for Physics of Complex Systems and Oxford University. You can read their paper which details their creation of a time crystal using Google’s Sycamore quantum computing hardware here.

“Time-crystals are a striking example of a new type of non-equilibrium quantum phase of matter,” said Vedika Khemani, assistant professor of physics at Stanford and a senior author of the paper. “While much of our understanding of condensed matter physics is based on equilibrium systems, these new quantum devices are providing us a fascinating window into new non-equilibrium regimes in many-body physics.”

Read the full article here: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211130130231.htm

Mi, X., Ippoliti, M., Quintana, C., Greene, A., Chen, Z., Gross, J., … & Roushan, P. (2021). Time-crystalline eigenstate order on a quantum processor. Nature, 1-1.

 

Women living with HIV – carrying the burden of the pandemic.

Source: Sophia Forum – We are still here – accessed 25-10-21

All groups affected by HIV should have access to appropriate care and the opportunity to, for instance, enter clinical trials and access innovative treatments. A recent editorial noted the mismatch between those PLWH that were recruited to clinical trials (overrepresentation of young white males) and those seen in the general population (a more heterogeneric demography). Women have been severely underrepresented in many areas of HIV treatment and care including inclusion in research. This appears to be an ongoing issue across the HIV landscape with alternative approaches required to allow both access and opportunity in advancing care and its underpinning research. This is essential as in the UK a third of people living with HIV are women and globally the figure stands at fifty percent and it is incumbent on everyone that the right interventions are utilised in this as well as any other community. This is particularly important where intersectional issues make marginalisation and stigma even more challenging.  The near-invisibility of WLWH is not a recent phenomenon but one that has existed from the early 80s when HIV came to the fore and the public’s attention.  This is one legacy that the community needs to overcome and as Jacqui Stevenson says:

No more excuses: Making HIV research work for women. (Sophia Forum)

Other marginalised groups such as those from BAME backgrounds, whilst being disproportionately affected, were also largely excluded from trials and medical care more generally.

As ART has produced improved outcomes in terms of life expectancy, the demographics of people living with HIV has changed radically. A significant number of PLWH including women have a life expectancy similar to that found in the general population.  However, there are disparities between groups (see, for instance, Solomon et al 2020) and a general reduction in quality of life for PLWH due to the onset of a range of geriatric syndromes a decade or more earlier with ongoing discrimination. This has been emphasised recently by ongoing research and advocacy by Jacqui Stevenson who has studied WLWH growing older. The outcomes of the research provide eight asks to improve the lives of WLWH.

Advice for women and HIV including using PrEP can be found at:

UKRI Reviews of Doctoral Training – The Good and Some Cause for Concern

The UKRI, the overarching government body that manages publicly funded research and innovation in the UK, has just published two reports on doctoral training one in STEM (the EPSRC report) and one by the equivalent in social sciences (the ESRC report). Both reports recognise the value of doctoral training with an emphasis on employers rather than the wider community. The reports highlight the need for future action in this area:

Alongside council-specific actions, the two reviews are also an important contribution to the evidence base for a new deal for postgraduate research, which will address:

  • funding and stipend levels
  • routes in, through and out of doctoral training
  • rights and conditions
  • diversification of models and access.

UKRI – https://www.ukri.org/news/epsrc-and-esrc-doctoral-reviews-published/ accessed 10-10-2021

The EPSRC has released its review of doctoral training in the STEM arena within the UK. There is a wealth of information on the background to the report including outcomes from workshops with stakeholders and a review of the current literature. There is also the report itself and the recommendations therein.

List of recommendations
Recommendation 1 To stimulate economic growth, EPSRC should increase the number of students it supports and the professional development that they receive. EPSRC-funded doctoral students go onto careers in innovation and research in manufacturing, information and communication technologies and other scientific and technical careers in industry and academia. To become a global science superpower, the number of people with these skills must grow and EPSRC must lead by increasing the number of students it supports. EPSRC should bid for an uplift of investment in EPS for doctoral education from the spending review and other opportunities.
Recommendation 2 EPSRC should better demonstrate the value of a doctorate, its outcomes, and the destination of doctoral graduates, so that this is understood by all key stakeholders.
Recommendation 3 EPSRC should continue to provide thought leadership in doctoral education to the EPS community by investing in the highest quality doctoral education provision which supports a diverse range of career paths.
Recommendation 4 EPSRC should provide a stable long-term baseline of investment to support a creative and innovative fundamental research community (such as the current algorithmic DTP investment), alongside a more dynamic framework to respond to and support emerging strategic priorities (for example by investing in more frequent CDT competitions and including studentship investments alongside research investments in top priority strategic areas).
Recommendation 5 To effectively support the UK’s increasing STEM capability, the system as a whole needs to grow. Recognising the high value placed on doctoral studentships by industry, EPSRC should engage with industry (both the current and new sectors) to encourage and enable increased industry funding and co-funding of doctoral students. These are effective ways of attracting industry investment into the R&D landscape.
Recommendation 6 EPSRC should showcase the ways small and medium enterprises can and do engage with doctoral students, to widen participation and enable overall growth in the system.
Recommendation 7 EPSRC should work with UKRI on doctoral student issues covered by the Government’s People and Culture Strategy expected to be published in summer 2021, ensuring that issues facing the EPS community are addressed. In particular, the New Deal for postgraduate research is expected to address areas such as the stipend level for doctoral students, the rights and conditions of doctoral studentships, financial sustainability of doctoral education investments, doctoral student recruitment policies, and the health and wellbeing of students.
Recommendation 8 The existing opportunity to employ graduates on UKRI grants does not replace our main route to doctoral education but could provide a valuable alternative career
Recommendation 9 EPSRC should work with the sector to provide greater recognition and visibility of the wider skills developed alongside research skills during a doctorate to ensure the employability of all doctoral graduates.
Recommendation 10 All EPSRC funded students should have access to opportunities outside of their research project (e.g., conferences, placements, public engagement), irrespective of the funding route. EPSRC should be explicit within each scheme that funding should be made available for opportunities outside of the research project.
Recommendation 11 EPSRC should prioritise funding excellent doctoral experiences and access to opportunities over student numbers, while ensuring value for money.
Recommendation 12 EPSRC should assist those who deliver the EPSRC doctoral investments in developing and sharing good practice.
Recommendation 13 It is essential that EPSRC continues to invest through a diverse range of flexible approaches so that we continue to support doctoral students’ varied needs, backgrounds and potential careers as well as the differing requirements of the research and innovation communities.
Recommendation 14 As EPSRC’s current mechanisms are well regarded, new initiatives should only be introduced where there is a compelling case for an alternative approach.
Recommendation 15 EPSRC should work with all stakeholders to ensure the current flexibilities relating to both collaboration and supporting students are well known and used.
Recommendation 16 Doctoral education should be available to people following a variety of career paths. EPSRC should work with stakeholders to continue to improve access, diversity of entry points to doctoral education and tailored support for individuals.
Recommendation 17 EPSRC should understand detailed EDI issues in each of our research areas or sectors and work with our community and representative bodies to address them. EPSRC will continue to work within UKRI on broader EDI initiatives.
Recommendation 18 EPSRC should explore how doctoral training investments can support the levelling up agenda.

Conspiracy theories as new pandemics arise… the role of the scientist!

Word Cloud from a set of Guardian posts on the origins of HIV

While reading the literature for a forthcoming grant submission on aspects of the HIV pandemic, I came across several articles both within and outside the mainstream media that relate to the development and spread of troubling assertions. These concern, for instance, the origin of HIV and an implied role of politicians in restricting or encouraging certain avenues of development to maintain industries’ pre-eminent economic position and profit-making. Sometimes these assertions develop into conspiracy theories which are explained, at a later date, in relatively simple terms, as is the case in recognising HIV sequences in the SARS-Cov-2 virus. Here, a bit more thought and critical evaluation would have prevented this avenue of thought, but instead it was posted on a pre-print server for all to see and then subsequently withdrawn, but not before the ‘engineered’ virus concept had taken hold in certain areas of the media.  The simple explanation was that a number of viruses have these sequences.

So what, as scientists, are we to do about preventing such misrepresentations in terms of engaging the public and our own self-management? Here are some thoughts:

  • Employ the skills that are central to our work as scientists, indeed as researchers more broadly, of checking, validating and providing critical insight to our work.  This is particularly important in the medical field generally, but in pandemics specifically, where there may be a heightened awareness of our own frailty and fear of new pathogens that arise from time to time.
  • Personally, I am concerned by the rise in the production of pre-prints from a niche activity to one that has now become mainstream. I suspect this is motivated by data-driven metrics (citations but also prestige) as well as the ‘first to print’, which may be important in exploiting base technologies. It can be argued, however, that this rapid dissemination of information is key, not only in developing collaborative research, especially in times of a pandemic, but also in allowing the quick development of frameworks and insights that may otherwise take months to generate if the peer-review process had to be adhered to. To protect both the research community and the wider public, servers hosting pre-prints have strengthened their assessment procedures once an article is posted. Nature Cancer provides a more nuanced overview of this issue as does the Lancet.
  • We should take it upon ourselves to assess the risks involved in how we report scientific findings, asking ourselves whether our published work can be misconstrued or misrepresented so as to allow a false discourse to emerge that can create a situation that does more harm than good.  I am not suggesting, in any form, that we should self-censor but there may be better ways of disseminating information to allow a more constructive debate.  A lack of transparency can also lead to a rise in misinformation, although we should endeavour to realise that the relationship between opaqueness, conspiracies and power, in the eyes of the public and other stakeholder groups, is a complex one and there are no easy fixes.
  • Following on from this we should aim to provide the public with timely information (see my second point) that adds to the debate, treats the individual or group with respect and takes out of the communication moralising (our prejudice) about their behaviour or activity. This is a multidisciplinary arena which works most effectively when it engages people from different disciplines and stakeholder groups to develop strategies relevant to the target cohort(s).
  • Words (and deeds) matter – choose your words carefully and have consideration for the cultural as well as scientific aspects of the cohorts’ living status.  Using certain words and phrases, however well meaning, can alienate, disenfranchise, further stigmatise and evoke distrust in the individuals or groups we are trying to help.  This applies across a range of illnesses and traumas, but particularly so for those in which there is significant stigma, such as mental health and HIV. In doing so, and where you can, try to make it a two-way dialogue and place the person we are trying to help at the centre of the research – co-create and co-produce – and ensure their contribution is valued.

Those outside science, medicine and research also have responsibilities, especially those that are in positions which require them to uphold given behaviour and adhere to certain protocols or codes of conduct. This is particularly important when using frameworks to build trust between stakeholders in the public at large and the wider concept of ‘truth’.

These are just a few thoughts and are not meant to be definitive answers. But I do hope to stimulate some debate.

Cartilage Tissue Engineering and Electrospinning

Cartilage-related diseases are a promising field to explore in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. The cartilage hydrated structure is aneural, avascular, and non-lymphatic, which complicates natural regeneration [1,2]. The increase in life expectancy and obesity is directly correlated to osteoarthritis –the disease caused by the degradation of cartilage. The painful consequences also increase comorbidities and burden patients and healthcare providers with exorbitant costs [3,4].

Currently, surgical and non-surgical therapies are employed to address osteoarthritis. They are not permanent solutions [5–7]. Therefore, several groups are developing hydrogels [8,9], electrospun mats [10], and other biomaterials to mimic the natural properties of cartilage. These implants can increase patients’ quality of life, reducing pain, comorbidities, and other undesirable effects after their clinical trials and regulatory agency approval.

 

Chondrocyte proliferation on neutralized chitosan fiber mats. Image adapted from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fhfh.2021.100018 under Creative Commons License

Yilmaz and Zeugolis discuss the promises, challenges, and future perspectives of electrospinning applied to cartilage tissue engineering [11]. They emphasize that although electrospinning literature is abundant in the Pubmed database, few studies explore electrospining’s potential applied to cartilage tissue engineering. The authors demonstrate with pre-clinical results that stem cell-seeded electrospun scaffolds combined with other techniques (3D printing and freeze-drying) can recover lubricating properties, mechanical resistance and restore cartilage tissue properties [11]. Although the reviewed studies consider small animals (rats, mice, and rabbits), they are promising to people suffering from the pain and harmful effects of osteoarthritis worldwide [11].

 

This article was written by André Plath as part of an ongoing series of scientific communications written and curated by BioTrib’s Early Stage Researchers.

André is researching Boundary Lubrication of Fibrous Scaffolds at ETH Zürich, Switzerland.

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[1]        L.M. Billesberger, K.M. Fisher, Y.J. Qadri, R.L. Boortz-Marx, Procedural Treatments for Knee Osteoarthritis: A Review of Current Injectable Therapies, Pain Res. Manag. 2020 (2020) 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/3873098.

[2]        E.D. Bonnevie, V.J. Baro, L. Wang, D.L. Burris, Fluid load support during localized indentation of cartilage with a spherical probe, J. Biomech. 45 (2012) 1036–1041. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbiomech.2011.12.019.

[3]        S. Glyn-Jones, A.J.R. Palmer, R. Agricola, A.J. Price, T.L. Vincent, H. Weinans, A.J. Carr, Osteoarthritis, in: Lancet, Lancet Publishing Group, 2015: pp. 376–387. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(14)60802-3.

[4]        D.J. Hunter, L. March, M. Chew, Osteoarthritis in 2020 and beyond: a Lancet Commission, Lancet. 396 (2020) 1711–1712. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)32230-3.

[5]        Y. Lee, J. Choi, N.S. Hwang, Regulation of lubricin for functional cartilage tissue regeneration: a review, Biomater. Res. 22 (2018) 9. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40824-018-0118-x.

[6]        G. Musumeci, C. Loreto, M.L. Carnazza, F. Coppolino, V. Cardile, R. Leonardi, Lubricin is expressed in chondrocytes derived from osteoarthritic cartilage encapsulated in poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate scaffold, Eur. J. Histochem. 55 (2011) 31. https://doi.org/10.4081/ejh.2011.e31.

[7]        W. Kabir, C. Di Bella, I. Jo, D. Gould, P.F.M. Choong, Human Stem Cell Based Tissue Engineering for In Vivo Cartilage Repair: A Systematic Review, Tissue Eng. Part B Rev. 27 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1089/ten.teb.2020.0155.

[8]        Y. Gombert, R. Simič, F. Roncoroni, M. Dübner, T. Geue, N.D. Spencer, Structuring Hydrogel Surfaces for Tribology, Adv. Mater. Interfaces. 6 (2019) 1901320. https://doi.org/10.1002/admi.201901320.

[9]        M. Jurak, A.E. Wiącek, A. Ładniak, K. Przykaza, K. Szafran, What affects the biocompatibility of polymers?, Adv. Colloid Interface Sci. 294 (2021) 102451. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cis.2021.102451.

[10]      J.K. Wise, A.L. Yarin, C.M. Megaridis, M. Cho, Chondrogenic Differentiation of Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells on Oriented Nanofibrous Scaffolds: Engineering the Superficial Zone of Articular Cartilage, Tissue Eng. Part A. 15 (2009) 913–921. https://doi.org/10.1089/ten.tea.2008.0109.

[11]      E.N. Yilmaz, D.I. Zeugolis, Electrospun Polymers in Cartilage Engineering—State of Play, Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol. 8 (2020). https://doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2020.00077.

Validation and Verification

Collectively, verification and validation are a cornerstone of many areas of research, none more so that in engineering and the physical sciences. Yet many early stage researchers have yet to appreciate their definitions or fully understand the signficance of these activities.  William Morales’, blog provides a brief introduction to Device Design Verification and Validation – useful for those just beginning in their careers in the MedTech arena or indeed anyone who needs a quick refresher.  However, there is still of lot of discussion about the use of the terms particulary between fields as there maybe nuances or historical context that means the defintions deviate – for instance the article at ResearchGate by Ryan and Wheatcroft (2017).  Simple defintions may employ something along the lines of:

  • verification - am I building something right
  • validation - am I building the right something

Software engineering, an increasingly important aspect of medical devices, especially through the rise of in situ/in vivo monitoring, has it owns definitions. Sargent defines the processes by which a researcher can V&V computational simulations whilst Viceconti et al (2021) discuss V&V for in silico trials.

Interesting paper that investigates corrosion and tribocorrosion behavior of binary and ternary carbide coatings for load-bearing implants

An exciting paper discussing the feasibility of binary and ternary carbide coatings for load-bearing implants with improved biocompatibility was published by Pana and co-workers in 2020. The peer-reviewed article was published in the Coatings journal and it is titled “In vitro corrosion and tribocorrosion performance of biocompatible carbide coatings”.

This work assessed elemental and phase composition, tribo-mechanical properties, corrosion and tribocorrosion of coatings deposited by cathodic arc evaporation on polished 316L SS discs (Ra = 50 ± 2 nm). TiNbC coating outperformed the other synthesized coatings in terms of initial surface roughness and corrosion resistance (shown by the lowest change in Ra before and after corrosion tests). Even though ZrC and TiNbC displayed similar polished wear tracks, the latter exhibited the lowest friction coefficient and wear rate on the tribocorrosion tests.

These results delivery an important advancement towards the development of coatings more biocompatible, presenting higher corrosion resistance along with improved tribocorrosion performance. The graphical abstract shown below showcases some of the results of this worth reading paper.

 

CC License – 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Pana, I.; Vladescu, A.; Constantin, L.R.; Sandu, I.G.; Dinu, M.; Cotrut, C.M. In Vitro Corrosion and Tribocorrosion Performance of Biocompatible Carbide Coatings. Coatings 2020, 10, 654. https://doi.org/10.3390/coatings10070654

 

This post was written by Pedro Luiz Lima dos Santos as part of an ongoing series of scientific communications written and curated by BioTrib’s Early Stage Researchers.

Pedro is researching the Functional Biotribology of the Surface Engineering of 3D Printed Components at the University of Leeds, UK.

Excellent paper from the Nu-Spine ETN – Congratulations to Seung and co-authors!

Seung Hun Lee and colleagues at ETH Zurich have recently published a peer reviewed paper “Comprehensive in vitro Comparison of Cellular and Osteogenic Response to Alternative Biomaterials for Spinal Implants” in Materials Science and Engineering: C. The article explored the effects of silicon nitride (SN) in terms of cell proliferation, mineralization and osteogenesis, all of which were deemed positive with respect to the effects of other materials including Ti and PEEK. A similar result to that of SiN was found for zirconia toughened alumina. Further, the paper demonstrates the potential of surface texturing in enhancing the osteogenic capacity of this material. The graphical abstract for the paper can be found below.

CC License – NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
Seunghun S. Lee, Stephanie Huber, Stephen J. Ferguson,
Comprehensive in vitro comparison of cellular and osteogenic response to alternative biomaterials for spinal implants,
Materials Science and Engineering: C, Volume 127, 2021, 112251, ISSN 0928-4931, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.msec.2021.112251.

Surface Modifications of Breast Implants affect Immune Response.

Further evidence of the important effect of engineered surfaces on immune response, this time in breast implants. Such research demonstrates the importance of modifying the surface texture in a manner that reduces the foreign body response. These and other examples pave the way for the development of new technologies for enhancing a favourable response to the implant and reduce complications including, potential, arising from infection and surface contraction.

The authors of the original paper have already provided a classification system for functional biocompatibility with regard to surface roughness (see figure below).


Figure reproduced from: Barr et al, Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials, Volume 75, November 2017, Pages 75-81.  Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

10,000 and counting – Congratulations to the ERC for reaching this impressive milestone!

The European Research Council has just awarded its 10,000th grant!  The award was an Consolidator Grant provided to Professor Inga Berre of the University of Bergen – congratulations! Not sure it is a milestone under the definition provided by the online manual for Horizon Europe, but BioTrib is not going to allow this to stop celebrating another EU Horizon success – champers out folks! To celebrate this fantastic achievement the ERC had a celebration attended by Senior EU dignitaries as well previous award winners outlining the support and subsequent impact such an award had on their careers and the wider community.