Broken or fractured bones repaired by surgery often require secondary operations to remove screws, rods and other surgical materials once they’ve healed. But and his colleagues in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering have developed biodegradable surgical materials that simply dissolve in the body within months.
Zeng and his student , together with other team members, use a magnesium alloy — rather than the conventional titanium alloy typically used in surgeries — to construct the screws and rods used to hold bones together. One challenge of the magnesium technology is that the alloy tends to disintegrate long before bone and surrounding tissue have healed, and also lacks sufficient antibacterial properties.
Zeng has devised a coating for the magnesium that slows down the biocorrosion process.
“It normally takes a bone fracture two to three months for the bone to grow back,” says Zeng. “Our coating can control that process, slowing it down to a few months, while preventing the buildup of bacteria.”
Other researchers are developing similar materials elsewhere, adds Zeng, but since he has secured a patent for his design, he hopes it could see commercialization within a few years.