1.1 Introduction
The treatment of injury, disease and congenital malformation from traditional to scientific has been part of the human experience. Better ways are sought to improve human life. One disease that is currently taking human lives is cancer. Cancer is second only to cardiovascular disease [1, 2], and with current trends is likely to become the leading cause of death globally by 2030.
In a quest to battle this globally threatening disease, research is being done to improve on conventional methods of detection and treatment [3-6]. This is to reduce the various side effects that accompany existing methods based on surgical procedures, radiation therapy, including bulk systemic chemotherapy. It is important to explore alternative approaches that can reduce the killing of normal or healthy cells during the cancer treatments.
An emerging field, tissue engineering, which provides an approach for the repair and fabrication of tissue from living cells [7] offers a better approach to cancer treatment. Soft tissue engineering plays a vital role in the treatment of cancer through implantable device. Implantable cancer treatment device enables localized drug delivery [6, 8]. This reduces the quantity of drug that is needed to have therapeutic effect significantly. Thus potential side effects of localized cancer drug delivery become much less than bulk systemic chemotherapy.
In localized cancer drug delivery, one polymer which has been used as a packaging material for controlled drug release is poly-di-methyl-siloxane (PDMS) [9]. PDMS is a biocompatible polymer, according to the United States Food and Drug Administration (US FD) and after some toxicity studies [10, 11], it has been approved for applications in implantable biomedical devices in humans [12, 13]. The challenge, however, lies in the physiochemical properties of PDMS surfaces, which may affect proper cell function, leading to poor integration of biomedical implants.
Even though some general correlations between the physiochemical properties of a given surface and its performance as a support for cell adhesion and growth have been established, there is limited understanding of the multi-scale interactions that lead to cell adhesion. There is therefore the need to study the effects of cell adhesions at multiple scales (nano, micro and meso).
1.1.2 Objectives of the Study
There are still significant unresolved issues that must be resolved to enable the design of improved adhesion between cells and implantable drug delivery device [15, 16]. These must be resolved to ensure improved integration between PDMS and biological cells/tissue. This will be done by the fabrication of PDMS and the engineering PDMS surfaces to make them more suitable for applications in an implantable cancer treatment device. This will be achieved by the use of surface modification and extra-cellular matrix (ECM) coating techniques.
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