Department of Oral Biology

1. To serve as a catalyst for collaborative investigations focused on applying the principles of biological systems to the hierarchal design, synthesis and application of biomaterials.

2. To offer bioengineering researchers state-of-the-art instrumentation for structure/property imaging of biological events at the cell, tissue and organ level.

3. To provide an environment for innovative approaches to the development of new tissue-engineered materials and imaging devices for clinical use.

4. To investigate the fundamental phenomena controlling biological interactions at tissue/material interfaces and to create new and improved imaging techniques for analyzing solid-liquid interfacial interactions in biological systems.

5. To apply the knowledge gained from the laboratory-based investigations to the development of imaging tools for clinical diagnosis. 

6. To provide an environment that promotes effective collaboration between clinical researchers and basic scientists thus, facilitating the translation of the fundamental laboratory results to clinical applications.

7. To offer training to students and new investigators in methods and techniques for analyzing the structure/property relationships of tissues, materials and the material/tissue interface.

8. To introduce micro- and nano-structure/property characterization techniques to new user communities in areas such as molecular biology and biotechnology.

Center Overview

The partnerships that have been forged within the Kansas City Community as part of the Life Sciences Initiative provide an opportunity to markedly increase biomedical research productivity at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Strategies to boost local research include recruiting established scientists, attracting top graduate students, enhancing local university curriculum and graduate programs, promoting university and hospital partnerships. The theme of the region’s research as described in this plan is ‘science across the life span’. Research efforts would be focused in the following areas: aging, cancer, the nervous system, the heart and infectious diseases. From this list, aging was chosen as the top priority.

In line with this top research priority, a major area of emphasis for future biomedical research at NIH is the development of materials that can be used to replace skeletal or oral tissues lost because of age, cancer or trauma. The demand for these materials in the United States is staggering; it is estimated that during the next year these materials will be used in 500,000 joint replacements and millions of dental-oral-craniofacial procedures, ranging from tooth restorations to major reconstruction of facial hard and soft tissues. Although these procedures have improved the quality of life for many patients, the clinical lifetime of these synthetic replacement materials is often less than one-tenth that of the original tissue. A new approach to the limitations of these materials is the development of tissue-engineered, bioreactive polymers/ceramics or even proactive materials that are designed to control, modulate and direct desirable cellular responses. The identification, characterization and synthesis of these revolutionary materials require the expertise of researchers from a variety of disciplines including bioengineers, geneticists, biologists, chemists, physicists, clinical and computer scientists. The synergy arising from the convergence of research in these disciplines will dramatically advance the translation of discoveries made in the lab to applications that will impact the health and well-being of society for decades.

The UMKC Center for Research on Interfacial Structure and Properties (UMKC-CRISP) is dedicated to making this goal a reality. Efforts are directed towards investigating the fundamental phenomena controlling biological interactions at interfaces and the creation of new and improved techniques for analyzing solid-liquid interfacial interactions in biological systems. The fundamental knowledge gained from integrated chemical, mechanical and structural analyses of natural tissues, synthetic materials and material/tissue reactions is applied to the design of new materials and the development of imaging devices for clinical use.