A major focus in tissue engineering is to create materials that
improve and direct cellular interaction. This interaction can be
probed by measuring the relative number of cells adhered to a
surface, which is thought to be an important step in the cascade
of cellular fate processes such as stem cell renewal or
differentiation into a specialized cell type. Now, in new work,
a group of Australian researchers have utilized the
industrially-relevant plasma polymerization technique to
chemically modify the surface of a biologically inert substrate
for the purpose of enhancing cell adhesion. Specifically, they
examined the effect of two plasma polymerization parameters,
discharge power and deposition time, on properties such as film
thickness, chemical composition, and cellular attachment. In all
cases, the plasma polymers deposited onto the substrates as
thin, 8 to 40 nm, films. The chemical composition of the films
was found to be more dependent on discharge power than
deposition time. They showed that this outco