10.1007/978-90-481-8790-4_13

Cell adhesion is a prerequisite for healing of implant materials and colonization of tissue engineering scaffolds. Hence, it is a crucial task to control adhesion of cells on biomaterials, which can be achieved by surface modification. Different techniques can be used to modify the surface of materials, which have the desired physical and chemical properties, but lack sufficient biocompatibility. Among the techniques of surface modification, a number of self assembly methods have the advantage to work in solutions, so that different shaped materials can be modified easily. Self assembly methods selected in this study were chemisorption and covalent binding of alkylsiloxanes on glass (i), photochemical binding of polyethylene glycol on hydrophobic polymers (ii) and alternating adsorption of polyanions and polycations to assemble nanostructured multilayers on charged surfaces (iii). These methods enable to obtain control on adhesion of cells on different classes of biomaterials, which eventually may promote subsequent processes like cell growth and differentiation.