Fabrication of novel interactive biomaterials via peptide integration for tissue engineering applications

New classes of materials are being designed to interact specifically with mammalian cells to control their behavior and subsequently direct the formation of organ specific tissue. One approach is to modify the surface of the material so that it will selectively interact with cells through specific biomolecular recognition events, thus, rendering it "biomimetic". Materials can be functionalized with a large variety of biologically active molecules including: peptides that affect cell attachment, growth factors that promote cell growth, and cellular differentiation. A novel approach to creating biomimetic materials lies in the identification of peptides that bind commercially available polymers with high specificity and affinity. Phage display technology, a combinatorial method of screening peptide sequence library, was used to select peptides that have binding specificity to the polymer-based biomaterials studied.