Biological surface science

Biological surface science (BioSS), as defined here is the broad interdisciplinary area where properties and processes at interfaces between synthetic materials and biological environments are investigated and biofunctional surfaces are fabricated. Six examples are used to introduce and discuss the subject: Medical implants in the human body, biosensors and biochips for diagnostics, tissue engineering, bioelectronics, artificial photosynthesis, and biomimetic materials. They are areas of varying maturity, together constituting a strong driving force for the current rapid development of BioSS. The second driving force is the purely scientific challenges and opportunities to explore the mutual interaction between biological components and surfaces.

Model systems range from the unique water structures at solid surfaces and water shells around proteins and biomembranes, via amino and nucleic acids, proteins, DNA, phospholipid membranes, to cells and living tissue at surfaces. At one end of the spectrum the scientific challenge is to map out the structures, bonding, dynamics and kinetics of biomolecules at surfaces in a similar way as has been done for simple molecules during the past three decades in surface science. At the other end of the complexity spectrum one addresses how biofunctional surfaces participate in and can be designed to constructively participate in the total communication system of cells and tissue.

Biofunctional surfaces call for advanced design and preparation in order to match the sophisticated (bio) recognition ability of biological systems. Specifically this requires combined topographic, chemical and visco-elastic patterns on surfaces to match proteins at the nm scale and cells at the micrometer scale. Essentially all methods of surface science are useful. High-resolution (e.g. scanning probe) microscopies, spatially resolved and high sensitivity, non-invasive optical spectroscopies, self-organizing monolayers, and nano- and microfabrication are important for BioSS. However, there is also a need to adopt or develop new methods for studies of biointerfaces in the native, liquid state.

For the future it is likely that BioSS will have an even broader definition than above and include native interfaces, and that combinations of molecular (cell) biology and BioSS will contribute to the understanding of the “living state”.