Biological Activity of

This chapter focuses on the biological activity of adsorbed proteins as related to the bodily responses to biomedical devices used in clinical medicine. In that context, the currently accepted approach is that further understanding of how adsorbed proteins affect cellular interactions with foreign materials will eventually result in design criteria for improved biomaterials that are more accepted in the body. Thus the chapter provides mechanistic insights into how the body responds to synthetic hiematerials as derived from an understanding of the effects of adsorbed proteins on cell interactions. Physicochemical aspects of protein adsorption are reviewed elsewhere [ 1-6].