RESEARCH ARTICLE
Silica Materials for Medical Applications
María Vallet-Regí*, Francisco Balas
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2008Volume: 2
First Page: 1
Last Page: 9
Publisher ID: TOBEJ-2-1
DOI: 10.2174/1874120700802010001
Article History:
Received Date: 1/11/2007Revision Received Date: 30/12/2007
Acceptance Date: 31/12/2007
Electronic publication date: 29/1/2008
Collection year: 2008
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.
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.