Bifunctional nanomaterials for simultaneously improving cell adhesion and affecting bacterial biofilm formation on silicon-based surfaces.

In the biomedical field, silicon-based materials are widely used as implants, biomedical devices, and drug delivery systems. Although these materials show promise for implant technologies and clinical applications, many of them fail to simultaneously possess key properties, such as mechanical stability, biostability, stretchability, cell adhesiveness, biofilm inhibition, and drug delivery ability. Therefore, there is considerable need for the development and improvement of new biomaterials with improved properties. In this context, we describe the synthesis of a new hybrid nanocomposite material that is prepared by incorporating bifunctional nanomaterials onto glass and polydimethylsiloxane surfaces. The results show that our hybrid nanocomposite material is elastic, stretchable, injectable, biostable, has pH-controlled drug delivery ability, and display improved cell adhesion and proliferation and, at the same time, impacted bacterial biofilm formation on the respective surfaces.