I/U Center for Biosurfaces University at Buffalo Site

Dr. Anne E. Meyer, Site Director
University at Buffalo
3435 Main St., 110 Parker Hall
Buffalo, NY 14214-3007
Telephone: (716) 839-3560
Fax:  (716) 835-4872

The Executive Site of the Industry/University Center for Biosurfaces, at the University at Buffalo, is SUNY’s only national, NSF-endorsed, industry/university cooperative research center.  Activities at two universities comprise IUCB: University at Buffalo, and The University of Memphis.

IUCB at Buffalo is committed to the performance of basic and applied research to advance understanding of bio/material interactions in systems where synthetic and natural materials come into intimate contact.  Center research involves the application of surface science to the following biotechnology fields:  biomaterials R&D, biomedical engineering, and environmental engineering.  The breadth and depth of Center faculty expertise in the disciplines of biophysics, physics, chemistry, microbiology, materials science (especially biopolymers and natural tissues), chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, and clinical sciences offer considerable advantages to associated sponsors, students, and faculty at Buffalo as well as at the associated IUCB research site at Memphis.

The Buffalo Center’s goals, objectives, and project plans were developed in a collaborative process involving University faculty from a range of disciplines and Center members from industry and government.  Emphasis at Buffalo is placed on multi-investigator, multidisciplinary research that is responsive to the needs of undergraduate and graduate students and faculty wishing to cross traditional academic boundaries.  IUCB has provided key elements of  UB’s biomedical engineering expertise since 1989, offering a coordinated program among the Schools of Dental Medicine, Engineering and Applied Sciences, Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, and College of Arts and Sciences.  The Executive Director of IUCB, Dr. Robert Baier, is also Graduate Program Director for SUNY Buffalo’s Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Biomaterials (Masters Degree), which articulates with Ph.D.-granting programs in the Schools of Medicine and Engineering.

The overarching long-term goal of the Buffalo site of the Industry/University Center for Biosurfaces is that first stated in 1988:  IUCB is dedicated to fundamental investigations of the interactions among four principal phases -- substrata, macromolecular “conditioning” films, living cells/tissues/organisms, and surrounding media -- from which all material/biosystem compatibility issues ultimately arise.  It is at these initial interfacial levels that problems must be solved.  The focus of IUCB’s current research program at Buffalo is on understanding, prediction, and control of biological adhesion.

These are the specific long-term goals and objectives of the Buffalo Center:

1.  Characterization of the surface chemical/physical properties of various synthetic substrata
that promote or resist bioadhesion, in aqueous media of varied organic/inorganic content, including materials contacting the lungs, eyes, mouth, skin, or interior body environments.
2.  Determination of the surface properties of biofluids and cells as they engage in interactions
with well-characterized substrata, giving special attention to the dynamics of media flow, cell arrival, surface modification, bio-attachment and -- finally -- stability of the attachment mechanisms, as observed in wound healing, for instance.
 
3.  Documentation of reactions between cells and adjacent cells, films and surrounding media,
and other cross-reactions, with particular attention to technology that may control these interactions to either promote or prevent bioadhesion in practical environmental, occupational, or therapeutic situations.
4.  Scale-up of these biotechnologies to macrosystem processes, like filtration and
          purification, that utilize safe and effective structural materials and formulations for
          improved health and comfort.

These actions are in concert with guidance on corporate research programs [CM Eidt, Jr. and RW Cohen (1997) CHEMTECH, 27(4):6-10], describing the drivers for basic research to be “... a broad spectrum of opportunities, the global venue, and a variety of technological interests underpinned by common science fields.”