PLGA from PolySciTech used in research on Polymer-Magnesium composite stents for treatment of heart disease

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in USA and is often characterized by closing of arteries feeding oxygenated blood to the heart leading to a heart attack. Non-resorbable stents have been applied to hold the vessels open, but these have drawbacks for long-term usage due to tissue reaction against the stents leading to reclosure of the vessel. Recently, researchers at University of California Riverside used PLGA (AP089) from PolySciTech (www.polyscitech.com) to create polymer-magnesium composite vascular stents for use in treatment of heart disease. This research holds promise to improve cardiovascular therapies in the future. Read more: Jiang, Wensen, Chaoxing Zhang, Larry Tran, Sebo Gene Wang, Ammar Dilshad Hakim, and Huinan Hannah Liu. "Engineering Nano-to-micron Patterned Polymer Coatings on Bioresorbable Magnesium for Controlling Human Endothelial Cell Adhesion and Morphology." ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering (2020). https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsbiomaterials.0c00642

“Abstract: Surface patterning is an attractive approach to modify the surface of biomaterials for modulating cell activities and enhancing performance of medical implants without involving typical chemical changes to the implants such as adding growth factors, antibiotics, and drugs. In this study, nano-to-micron patterns were engineered on thermoplastic and thermoset polymer coatings on bioresorbable magnesium (Mg) substrates to control the cellular responses and material degradation, for vascular applications. Capillary force lithography (CFL) was modified and integrated with spray coating to fabricate well-aligned nano-to-micron patterns on the thermoplastic poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) and thermoset poly(glycerol sebacate) (PGS) coatings on Mg substrates. Specifically, a new process of molding-curing CFL was revised from the conventional CFL to successfully create nano-to-submicron patterns on thermoset PGS for the first time. The nano-to-micron patterned polymer coatings of PLGA and PGS on Mg were carefully characterized, and their effects on cell adhesion and morphology were investigated through direct culture with human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) in vitro. The results showed that the 3000-nm parallel grooves could effectively elongate the HUVECs while the 740-nm parallel grooves tended to reduce the spreading of HUVECs. The PLGA coatings reduced the degradation of Mg substrates more than that of the PGS coatings in the direct culture with HUVECs in vitro. CFL-based methods coupled with spray coating should be further studied as a non-chemical approach for creating nano-to-micron patterned polymer coatings on Mg-based substrates of various size and shape, which may present a new direction for improving the performance of Mg-based bioresorbable vascular devices toward potential clinical translation.”