In August, 320 articles about chitosan and chitosan derivatives were published in various scientific journals (PubMed). Seven of these articles are dedicated to the exciting topic of electrospun chitosan nanofibers. For generation of nanofibrous structures in tissue engineering, electrospinning is a simple and inexpensive technology. Electrospun nanofiber non-woven mats are highly porous and offer a large surface area. The biocompatible, biodegradable and bacteriostatic chitosan is perfectly suitable for creation of nanofibers and application as scaffold material.

What about the viral safety of chitosan? Here, we would like to present an interesting publication about the viral safety of chitosan. Chitosan can be applied as a virus-free biopolymer for medical products in human, as the deacetylation process of chitin is sufficient for virus inactivation, shown by Park et al (2015). The researchers from Korea used chitin from Heppe Medical Chitosan to show that viruses are efficiently inactivated during the deacetylation process from chitin to chitosan.

The development of a strong bond between implant surface and the surrounding bone substance, called osseointegration is important for successful integration of a dental implant. The coating of dental implants with chitosan is a promising approach to enable an accelerated and improved integration. In the following, we present two publications about chitosan-based coatings for dental implants.

Functional coatings are applied to improve resistance of implants like artificial heart valves or coronary stents against various impacts in the human body. One problem is the formation of biofilms on the implant surface, which limits communication of the implant with the surrounding area and might induce inflammatory reactions. In addition, nature of the implant material can promote the formation of blood clots, which leads to blocked arteries.