Patterned and switchable surfaces for biomaterial applications

Chapter 1 - IntroductionA number of biodevice applications will benefit from the further development ofbiomolecules manipulation and an advanced understanding of the underlyingphenomena. In particular, the recently developed transfected cell microarray methodwill be optimised and its scope expanded to a wide range of cell lines and primarycells. Already key steps have been taken to confine cell colonies to localised regions,to improve transfection efficiency, to adapt the approach to cells that are notoriouslydifficult to transfect or even non-adherent. One can easily envisage systems beingdeveloped where cells and DNA are delivered with high precision and speed forformation of high-density cell co-cultures that will not only be useful for genomicand proteomic analysis, but also for stem cell differentiation experiments and tissueengineering.The development of TCMs is both an exciting and important development for thehigh-throughput determination of gene function, which is important for combatinggenetic based disorders such as cancer and for the identification of potential drugpathways. The increased understanding of DNA-surface interactions and thedevelopment of advanced material surfaces with the ability to temporally andspatially control biomolecule manipulation, formed by the use of high-resolutionpatterning techniques, provides the means to develop highly functional and reliableplatforms for advanced genomic analysis. The continued development of RNAi onTCMs for high-throughput loss-of-function studies and the development of methodsenabling highly resolved subcellular phenotypic examination will enable more indepthstudies, not only into gene function but also into the machinery involved ingene expression. The means to optimise the DNA microarray formation, cell seeding,DNA uptake and expression are within grasp and no doubt will result in theimplementation of an advanced genomic analysis tool that is adaptable to a wide1-60