From face to rocket: how TSU ceramics change the entire industries

TOMSK, Oct 29 – RIA Tomsk, Elena Taylasheva. Tomsk oncologists to perform the reconstruction of the lower jaw using 3D nanoceramics implants developed in Laboratory for Medical Materials Science of Tomsk State University (TSU). Why this development most of all "got accustomed" in medicine and how Tomsk ceramics can help in creation of "invisible" rocket – in the material of RIA Tomsk.

The effect is evident

The first prosthesis made of porous nanoceramics was installed in Tomsk a year and a half ago; the 26-year-old patient from Tuva who lost a part of her upper jaw due to osteogenic sarcoma became the "pioneer". The senior research associate of Cancer Research Institute of Tomsk National Research Medical Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Tomsk NRMC) Denis Kulbakin says that a month after the operation there was an excellent effect:

"The edema is gone, we removed the stitches – the prosthesis made of nanoceramics took root. In a year and a half, six such prostheses were installed, and all successfully. While the most common implants made of metal have different statistics: up to 40% are torn away because of development of inflammatory processes. Until the end of the year we will have two more operations, next year we plan to sharply increase the pace and take about 20 patients".

All operations Tomsk microsurgery while doing on the upper jaw, but now preparing the first operation on the lower jaw. "It is more mobile, special approach is necessary. But we have already begun preparation", – says Denis Kulbakin.

How the science survived

Surgeons-oncologists and material scientists met at one of the scientific medical conferences in Tomsk. "Is it interesting to you?" – "Interesting!" – this is approximately how the collaboration began. But about two years passed before the first operation – it was necessary to develop a methodology, to solve all the smallest nuances of future operations.

And now the head of the Faculty of Physics and Engineering and the head of the Laboratory for Medical Materials Science of Tomsk State University Sergey Kulkov notes: "Physicians – are the only ones at the moment (technology consumers) with whom we have got cooperation. There is no finance, but there is mutual interest, the work is supported at the level of the director of the Cancer Research Institute Evgeny Choynzonov".

His team – in whatever organizational form it did not remain for more than 20 years of work – has always been involved in the application of basic research for technology development.

“My laboratory was created in 1988 as a branch laboratory of the Ministry of Mechanical Engineering, we were developing high-strength composite materials. There was no trendy word "nano" yet – but there were ultrafine materials, essentially the same thing. In 1992, when all science fell apart, we were able to continue working thanks to the economic contracts, which were not super-large, but allowed to survive”, – recalls Kulkov.

To deceive cells

In the 2000s, the laboratory took up a new promising direction – ceramic composites, then – porous ceramic materials. The federal target programs of the Ministry of Education, which appeared at that time, helped to completely immerse into science, and not to think about a slice of bread ...

"We looked at the different structures of the pore space, and then suddenly – once! – we saw that the pore structure resembles the bone structure. We began to study the mechanical properties, and eventually made a complete analog of the bone. And then suddenly (in science of a lot of things occurs "suddenly") appeared Denis Kulbakin, an excellent microsurgeon who performs operations on the facial part and who became interested in our developments", – tells Sergey Kulkov.

Now scientists are faced new tasks – how, for example, to make so that osseointegration took place not in a month, but in a week? This question can be considered from the point of view of biology, and the Kulkov laboratory team is already conducting joint studies with biologists on organic coatings for ceramics.

"It is also possible to approach it from the point of view of physics: now in ceramics aluminum oxide Al₂O₃ is used – a pure insulator which does not conduct current, but if to take ZrO₂ zirconium oxide, which is a superionic conductor, the cells will "feel" the surface potential and will be more active multiply it. Interdisciplinarity allows to create structures "deceiving" the body better and better", – smiles the scientist.

And if, he continues, to add oxygen to aluminum oxide, the material will become strong and refractory at the same time – it will melt at 2000°C. And if to replace aluminum with zirconium – at 2400 degrees ...

"This is, of course, no longer a medical topic – such heat resistance is not needed in medicine. But these materials may be of interest to various industries. And now we are working on non-oxide ceramics that can work at temperatures up to 3000 degrees”, – says Kulkov.

Such material, for example, opens up a chance for designers to make an "invisible" rocket which will be difficult for the enemy to mark. After all, in order for it to move along an uncontrolled (rather than standard ballistic) trajectory and could fly around the globe several times, its engine must withstand ultra-high temperatures for an hour or two, to which the plasma flows of the atmosphere heat the rocket.

"Nobody sets such tasks for scientists, these studies – are almost entirely our initiative. But they already give results: during tests based on Roskosmos’s head organization – TsNIIMash – samples of our multilayer ceramics were exposed to plasma overclocked to hypersonic speed with temperature, reaching 3000 degrees. Under such extreme conditions, the new material withstood no more than four minutes, this is an achievement”, – considers Sergey Kulkov.

Now there are discussion of specification for the manufacture of a model that is close to real, in order to conduct tests in non-laboratory conditions.