Definition
According to Chester’s definition, it’s about all non living material used in a medical disposition for replacing or treating a tissue, organ or a function with more than 3 weeks of contact. The biomaterials regroup, metals, mettallic blends ceramics and plastics as well as material from natural origins collagène, cellulose ans coral. A new type of biomaterial called 3rd generation asociates dead matter with living matter such as skin cuture for example.

Applications
The best known application of biomaterial is the hip prosthesis. This example is very interesting because it represents different classes of biomaterial : the stem is in titanium, the head in ceramic and the cup in polymeras

Progress, innovations
The institute of industrial materials (IMI) recently developped a procedure for the fabrication of metallic foam. The open structure of this type of materials is particulary adapted for porous anchoring in orthopdics and dentistery

Did you know ?
The bone is essentially composed of collagene (organic material) and hydroxyapatite (mineral aterial) ?The bioabsorbable cements are made of synthetic hydroxyapatite that body can re-use after their dissolution for bone regenaration ?Dental fillings have been replaced by dental composite resine where UV light is applied to harden it ?The new dental prosthesis are made with ceramic ?Today the imprint of dental prosthesis are obtained with a scannerdirectly linked to the unit of calculation permitting their manufacturing. The biocompatibility of implants are realised through the surfaces made first by titanium oxide sand-blasting and after by a progressive acidification with citric acid.