Mei Wei - Research
Bioactive Implant Guided Supracrestal Bone Formation:
An absence of adequate alveolar bone height precludes the placement of dental implants unless preceded by separate autogenous graft procedures. These autogenous vertical augmentation procedures requiring a volume of donor material sufficient to appreciably increase bone height result in pain and risk of injury to the donor site as well as unpredictable therapeutic results. The development of a surgical approach that allows for simultaneous graft/implant placement without autogenous donor material and achieves predictable outcomes has great potential benefit for these circumstances. In this project, such an approach has been developed and demonstrated positive results in our preliminary work utilizing an extraoral mandibular rabbit model. Our system is based on the concept that implants with bioactive or osteoinductive surface characteristics have the capacity to guide supracrestal bone growth when placed in conjunction with an osteoinductive scaffold material. (Funded by ITI foundation)

A Novel Approach to Improve the Bonding Strength between the HA Coating and Metallic Substrates:
The objective of the research is to understand the interrelationship between the interface modification and the final performance of the HA coating. Such coatings should have a strong bonding strength, stable interface, superior corrosion resistance and excellent biocompatibility suitable for orthopaedic and dental applications. In this project, the Ti alloy surface is modified prior to HA coating. A multifunctional compliant multi-layer is applied to the surface of the Ti alloy, which consists of a FeCrAl thin film bottom layer, a dense, adherent -alumina subscale, and a nano-whisker alumina top layer. Futhermore, nano HA coatings is applied onto the surface of the compliant layer using either electrophoresis or biomimetic assembly. Both coating techniques are explored as model systems for comparison. (Funded by NSF)

Multi-functional Composites for Load-bearing Skeletal Applications:
The objective of this project is to achieve a fundamental understanding of the effect of apatite/fibrous polymer composite constructions on the mechanical properties, degradation rate and bone formation rate of the material. In the last two decades, there has been tremendous interest in the fabrication of apatite/polymer composites. Such composites have stable bone/implant interfaces, excellent biocompatibility, and low risk of stress-shielding. Despite the success in apatite/polymer composite studies, the existing composites have relatively poor mechanical properties, which restrict their use in many applications, such as a skeletal implant in load-bearing situations. Rational materials design and precise engineering of the composites are becoming increasingly important in the development of a new generation of materials for broader orthopedic applications. (Funded by NSF)

Novel Murine Calvarial Model for Guided Supracrestal Bone Growth:
An absence of adequate alveolar bone height precludes the placement of dental implants unless preceded by separate autogenous graft procedures. Without sufficient vertical alveolar bone height, the initial stability and subsequent clinical success of implants that are placed are likely to be compromised. There is currently no predictable method of vertical bone augmentation. Our goal of this project is to deliver locally acting osteogenic agents from bioactive implant surfaces to guide new supracrestal alveolar bone formation at resorbed sites. Towards this end, we have recently developed a novel in vivo murine calvarial model and a novel rabbit mandible model to use bioactive coatings and/or deliver osteogenic agents from implants. These models provide an adequate volume of native bone to allow for the use of human size dental implants that are custom designed for guiding new supracrestal bone growth. (Funded by Straumann)

Delivery of Growth Factors Using a Novel Composite for Bone Repair:
Each year, there are more than 1.3 million bone-repair procedures in the USA. Especially, for repairing complicated fractures, trauma, bone tumors, congenital defects or spinal fusion, there is a pressing need to develop synthetic composite carriers that have high initial structural integrity, can sustain the release of single or multiple agents known to induce bone regeneration; and, at the same time, undergo slow controlled resorption eliminating the need for subsequent surgical removal. The objective of this work is to explore a new bone-repair synthetic composite material, which has sufficient mechanical strength during the bone healing process, and provides a long-term localized release of more than one growth factor. Aside from leading with high certainty to a series of new medical materials, this study enhances our understanding of the mechanical behavior of quasi-uniaxial composites, as the structure of the composites used can be precisely controlled. (Funded by CII)

Optimizing mesoderm derived bone cell differentiation from hES cells and Administrative Core:
Bone tissue engineering is a new emerging field, which has major potential to improve human health by repairing and maintaining existing bone or generating new bone. This potential can be further realized through a combination of a scaffold matrix, bone cells and/or osteoinductive agents to form a tissue engineering construct to promote bone repair. The objective of this project is to develop a novel apatite/fibrous polymer nano-composite scaffold for guided bone repair. ( Funded by State of Connecticut Stem Cell Initiative)