Your task is to locate and find artificial, man made material to be used as impl

Question

Your task is to locate and find artificial, man made material to be used as implantable prostheses or artificial organs. You would like to come up with non toxic, never rejected material for cartilage replacement or repair. You heard of two possible synthetic polymers. One is made from Saccharomyces cerevisiae outer sugar layer; the other is a polymer of ethylene, or some high molecular weight hydrocarbon. Which one of the two polymers would you choose to test? Explain your answer and give reasons for choosing it over the one you have just rejected.

Explanation / Answer

The high molecular weight hydrocarbon polymer will be chosen for cartilage repair. The cartilage is a soft and firm tissue and more flexible than bone. It is a connective tissue in many parts including joints. The biomaterial chosen should be ideally to form as a hydrogel inside with a stiffer surface marerial with tensile property similar to cartilage bone so that it can allow the chondrocytes to grow within the tissue construct. Polymer is suitable to create matrix with suitable cells to form as tissue construct in the replacement therapy for cartilage. Whereas the Saccharomyces cerevisiae is widely used to make ethanol and biofuel but cannot form as a polymer with high molecular weight to develop as a matrix with appropriate tensile property. Thus high molecular weight polymer is the ideal source of biomaterial in cartilage tissue engineering.

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