Medical Applications for Electrostatic Flocking, Part 1: Tissue Engineering & Bone Repair
Note: This is part one of a 3-part series of AFA blogs discussing biomedical applications for flock. Today’s discusses flocking for bone repair and regeneration. Next month’s medical AFA blog will look at flocking for wound repair.
The basic mechanics of electrostatic flocking to create a flocked textile may also be used to create biologic-based scaffolds that help heal bones, cartilage, and other tissues, according to a research paper filed with the National Library of Medicine.
Funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, the December 2021 study, titled “Understanding and utilizing textile-based electrostatic flocking for biomedical applications” offers a lengthy list of potential medical procedures based on flocked substrates.
Improving orthopedic outcomes with electrostatically flocked tissue scaffolds. Proposed uses of flocked tissue scaffolds for (a) repairing cranial defects and (b) osteochondral engineering of joints to treat arthritis and cartilage defects. (c) Illustration representing composite flock scaffolds with gradient mechanical properties matching different regions of cortical and trabecular bone.
In today’s blog, we will discuss highlights from the study related to electrostatic flocking for tissue regeneration of bone structures. To understand how this can work it is important, first, to review the basics of traditional electrostatic flocking. Overall, flocking can be applied to any surface and involves three components: a surface, an adhesive, and a flocking material, all applied through a mechanical process.
According to the study, “Electrostatic flocking is a unique textile engineering technique that applies a surface finish of vertically aligned microfibers onto an adhesive-coated substrate. Since flock fibers may be applied to any surface that an adhesive may be applied to, it has wide-reaching [medical] applications.”
This includes flocked scaffolds designed to help regenerate the mechanical properties of a human bone.
Although flocking is currently best known as a process for applying synthetic fibers to surfaces such as paper, textiles, polymers and metal, flock made from biomaterials can be applied to a biomedical surface with a biologic adhesive. For medical purposes, those three basic components can be made from a number of biologic materials, including cellulose, collagen, and chitosan.
A potential advantage of biomedical flocking is that it can be applied to a porous surface that allows nature’s building blocks to create a new, lasting, and living structure.
The study states that “flocked (biomedical) scaffolds offer a massive surface area-to-volume ratio that allows cells, oxygen, and nutrients to move and interconnect incredibly well” and “in theory, cells can migrate throughout and along fibers with no hindrance” and reconstruct tissues with the body’s own building materials. Meanwhile, biomedical flocked scaffolds can be made from biomaterials that have the potential to biodegrade over time.
Flocked biomedical surfaces can also be treated with antimicrobial finishes, such as silver.
The result is a scaffold that has the potential to repair broken bones, rebuild joints worn down by arthritis and reverse cartilage defects. The study says flocked tissue scaffolds can also be used to repair cranial (skull) injuries from surgery or an accident.
There are, of course, caveats.
For one, the fiber material should meet all the requirements needed for TE scaffolds: biodegradable, biocompatible, immunologically inert, and mechanically stable under physiological conditions. Second, fibers should meet criteria required for electrostatic flocking, which includes a high melting point. And third, continued study is needed to prove and improve efficacy.
To learn more, here is the link to the study.
Author’s Notes
The study was led by Alec McCarthy in the Department of Surgery – Transplant – and the Mary and Dick Holland Regenerative Medicine Program at the College of Medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
Rajesh Shah, Chairman of AFA’s Executive Committee, also contributed to the study.
Next Time: In February, look for our blog on flocking and wound management.