Currently, there are more than 1.5 million knee and hip replacement procedures carried out in the United States. Implants have a 10-15-year lifespan with up to 30% of revision surgeries showing complications with osteomyelitis. Titanium and titanium alloys are the favored implant materials because they are lightweight and have high mechanical strength. However, this increased strength can be associated with decreased bone density around the implant, leading to implant loosening and failure. To avoid this, current strategies include plasma-spraying titanium surfaces and foaming titanium. Both techniques give the titanium a rough and irregular finish that improves biocompatibility. Recently, researchers have also sought to surface-conjugate proteins to titanium to induce osteointegration. Cell adhesion-promoting proteins can be conjugated to methacrylate groups and crosslinked using a variety of methods. Methacrylated proteins can be conjugated to titanium surfaces through atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP). However, surface conjugation of proteins increases biocompatibility non-specifically to bone cells, adding to the risk of biofouling which may result in osteomyelitis that causes implant failure. In this work, we analyze the factors contributing to biofouling when coating titanium to improve biocompatibility, and design an experimental scheme to evaluate optimal coating parameters.
Keywords: biomaterials; chemical descriptors; implanted medical devices; machine learning; surface chemistry; titanium coating.