During the Biominds Poster day held on March 21, 2009 at the Bioprocess development & Training complex, I had the opportunity to visit two posters. Unfortunately the time does not allow me to see more than two because the posters were very interesting that I spend more time than the allowed interviewing the posters presenters. It was a very educative and interactive experience which involved the participation of several departments such as: chemistry, biology, mechanical engineering and biotechnology. It was impressive to see the integration of these sciences in a one single project as I perceived in my peers posters. I think that was the main purpose, to integrate the knowledge and the inherent human curiosity to learn about interdisciplinary interesting and promising projects.
I will give a briefly review of just two projects of the one hundred or more projects presented that day.
Plasma Electrolytic Oxidation Used for Hidroxyapatite Thin Film Formation on Ti-6Al-4V and γ-TiAl Alloys
Poster Presenter: Ana Mosquera
Nowadays biomaterials have attracted the attention of many scientists because their applications are broad and seem to be promising. Bone healing is one of those applications. Among the materials used for this purpose are: silica mesoporous materials specially, SBA-15 and MCM-48, Si films, among others. According to Ana, in this specific project they used Ti-6Al-4V and γ-TiAl alloys to study the growth of hydroxyapatite (Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2) on the surface of the alloys. Why Hydroxiapatite? As far as I understood, it is because it promotes bone regeneration and accelerates the bone healing process. Moreover, hydroxapatite chemical composition resembles part of that found in bones tissue. The idea of coating the surface of the alloy with hydroxiapatite comes because the properties provided by titanium oxide itself (material used for bone healing applications) such as: surface area, thickness and adherence preferable in such materials, were poor in comparison with other materials used for bone healing applications. The research project is really interesting and I hope that it could be implemented in a near future. Ana was very secure while presenting.
Functional Analysis of Rhesus Macaca Mulatta Collagenase(MMP1) and Gelatinase (MMP2) Domains, Important for Eye Development, Vision and Ocular Diseases
Poster Presenter: Angiemar Maldonado
The principal objective of Angimar’s research work was to study matrix metalloproteases (MMPs) , extracellular enzymes with the ability to degrade structural proteins in the extracellular matrix, with the aim to inhibit its function as an effort to develop therapeutic treatments for some ocular diseases. According to Angimar , they study the Maccaca Mulatta animal to see which MMPs sequences are conserved , and based on that results they developed primers to detect the MMP genes using electronic PCR, which is a computational procedure to identify sequence tagged sites. As far as I understand they have to perform future research on the MMP functionality by detecting the enzymatic activity of the metalloprotease and use aptamers to investigate the inhibition of the MMP. Angimar’s poster fulfilled with all the requirements, and she was very aware of what she was exposing and explaining. It is very important to highlight again, that this project intends to design drugs for treat ocular disease such as Glaucoma.
