RESEARCH ARTICLE


Silica Materials for Medical Applications



María Vallet-Regí*, Francisco Balas
Department of Inorganic and Bioinorganic Chemistry, Facultad de Farmacia, Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) and Networking Biomedical Engineering Research Center for Bioengineering, Biomaterials and Nanomedicine (CIBER-BBN), Plz. Ramón y Cajal, s/n., 28040 Madrid, Spain


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Creative Commons License
2008 Bentham Science Publishers Ltd.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/), which permits unrestrictive use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Inorganic and Bioinorganic Chemistry, Facultad de Farmacia, Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) and Networking Biomedical Engineering Research Center for Bioengineering, Biomaterials and Nanomedicine (CIBER-BBN), Plz. Ramón y Cajal, s/n., 28040 Madrid, Spain; E-mail: vallet@farm.ucm.es


Abstract

The two main applications of silica-based materials in medicine and biotechnology, i.e. for bone-repairing devices and for drug delivery systems, are presented and discussed. The influence of the structure and chemical composition in the final characteristics and properties of every silica-based material is also shown as a function of the both applications presented. The adequate combination of the synthesis techniques, template systems and additives leads to the development of materials that merge the bioactive behavior with the drug carrier ability. These systems could be excellent candidates as materials for the development of devices for tissue engineering.