Nanotechnology is defined as the design of products that interact with biological systems on the nanoscopic scale. Creating a controlled nanotexture and understanding the ways in which surface properties impact inflammatory response is of the utmost significance in designing implants that can provide satisfactory outcomes.

Liquid drops on soft solids generate strong deformations below the contact line, resulting from a balance of capillary and elastic forces. The movement of these drops may cause strong, potentially singular dissipation in the soft solid. Here we show that a drop on a soft substrate moves by surfing a ridge: the initially flat solid surface is deformed into a sharp ridge whose orientation angle d...

Scars following trauma [1] is a cause of concern for many a patient. Various modalities have been used for the treatment of scars over the years. Corticosteroids, dermabrasion, surgical revision, chemical peeling, silicone gel application, pressure therapy, and radiation have been used with varying results [2]. Ablative lasers such as the carbon dioxide (CO2), erbium: yttrium-aluminum-garnet (E...

Solvent-swollen polymer gels can be utilized as mechanical simulants of biological tissues to evaluate protective systems and assess injury mechanisms. However, a key challenge in this application of synthetic materials is mimicking the rate-dependent mechanical response of complex biological tissues. Here, we characterize the mechanical behavior of tissue simulant gel candidates comprising a c...

Modeling human body response to dynamic loading events and developing biofidelic human surrogate systems require accurate material properties over a range of loading rates for various human organ tissues. This work describes a technique for measuring the shear properties of soft biomaterials at high rates of strain (100-1000 s(-1)) using a modified split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB). Establish...

Division of Plastic Surgery, Wellesley Hospital, and the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario Presented in part at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the Canadian Society of Plastic Surgeons, June 24, 1999, Montreal, Quebec This article is the winner of the 1999 Mentor Prize Correspondence: Dr Walter Peters, Suite 418, 160 Wellesley Street East, Toronto, Ontario M4Y 1J3. Telephone 416-926-7790, fax ...

JOURNAL OF WOUND CARE JANUARY, VOL 9, NO 1, 2000 Most wound healing is well controlled, but over-abundant deposition of collagen may result in hypertrophic or keloid scarring.1 These scars are raised, hard, lumpy and erythematous, and pruritis is invariably a distressing symptom.2 The prime clinical feature distinguishing keloid from hypertrophic scarring is that keloid scar tissue progressivel...

Significant blood loss and high rates of transfusion remain ongoing concerns in burn surgery. We have reported a haemostatic technique using silicone gel dressing to minimise bleeding during tangential excision in burn surgery. The purpose of this study was to identify the efficacy of our novel haemostatic technique for burn surgery. This study was a retrospective observational study. From 1 Ap...

BACKGROUND Transaxillary augmentation mammaplasty (TAM) is an option for patients who wish to avoid a visible breast incision from breast augmentation (BA). OBJECTIVES The authors compared TAM outcome data for gel and saline implants and evaluated patient satisfaction using the BREAST-Q patient-reported outcome measure (BQ). METHODS In this 10-year retrospective, comparative, and cross-sect...

BACKGROUND The physiopathogenesis of proliferative scarring in human skin is not well understood. Furthermore, knowledge of the precise mechanisms of action for physical treatment modalities is limited. Compression garments, occlusive/adhesive skin taping, and silicone gel sheets are applied to form an occlusion on the scar surface, reduce tension, and/or increase pressure on the scar itself. T...