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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 March 2012
To date, there are a strikingly growing number of patients who need variousorthopedic implants. However, traditional orthopedic implants face manycomplications such as infection and implant loosening which may lead toimplant failures. Conventional metal implants such as titanium were chosenfor orthopedic applications mainly based on their excellent mechanicalproperties and biological inertness. Since natural bone matrix is nanometerin dimension, it is desirable to design a biologically inspirednanostructured coating that can turn conventional inert titanium surfacesinto biomimetic active interfaces, thus enhance bone cell adhesion andosseointegration. For this purpose, we designed a biomimetic nanostructuredcoating based on nanocrystalline hydroxyapatites (nHA) and single wallcarbon nanotubes (SWCNTs). Specifically, nHA with good crystallinity andbiomimetic dimensions were prepared via a wet chemistry method andhydrothermal treatment; and the SWCNTs were synthesized via an arc plasmamethod with or without magnetic fields. TEM images showed that thehydrothermally treated nHA possessed regular rod-like nanocrystals andbiomimetic nanostructure. In addition, the length of SWCNTs can besignificantly increased under external magnetic fields when compared tonanotubes produced without magnetic fields. More importantly, our resultsshowed that the above nHA and SWCNTs nanomaterials can greatly promoteosteoblast (bone-forming cell) adhesion on titanium in vitro, thus holding great promise to improve osseointegrationand lengthen the lifetime of current orthopedic implants.