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This Defense Intelligence Reference Document, dated 7 January 2010, was prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency's Defense Warning Office. It is one of a series of advanced technology reports produced in FY 2009 under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications program. The report reviews biomaterials used in medicine, including silicones, Teflon, biodegradable polymers, hydrogels, titanium, ceramics and tissue constructs, and applications such as stents, joints, contact lenses, drug delivery and dialysis. It concludes that most innovation lies in new ways to apply existing materials.
From the source:Release of 2026-09-18 Incident: 1/7/10, Las Vegas, Nevada. Released with redactions. This document is a Defense Intelligence Reference Document (DIRD), a technical reference format used by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to capture baseline knowledge on a specific topic for later analytic use. DIRDs are best understood as reference and synthesis products rather than as original research. It is one of 38 DIRDs produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) between 2009 and 2011. Because AAWSAP’s scope permitted a broad range of supporting topics, not every DIRD in the series directly concerns aerospace systems or future threat assessment. The following summary reflects the DIRD’s scope and framing at the time of writing and should not be read as implying current validation of the concepts discussed. This DIRD is a broad survey of biomaterials, including metals, polymers, ceramics, glasses, and composites designed to interact with living tissue, and argues that their value depends mainly on biocompatibility, reliability, and careful matching of material properties to specific medical uses. The report reviews major application areas including biosensors, implants, cardiovascular devices, contact lenses, drug delivery systems, tissue constructs, titanium devices, and dialysis membranes, emphasizing that no single biomaterial works best in every setting. Its overall conclusion is that biomaterials are already foundational to a large medical-device industry and save or improve millions of lives, but that progress tends to be slow because safety testing is stringent; as a result, most advances come from improved ways of applying established materials such as silicone, Teflon, biodegradable polymers, ceramics, and titanium in new devices and clinical settings rather than from radically new substances.
UNCLASSIFIED//P'OR. OP'fl@IAL W&lii QPIL¥ PMMA, however, is not an ideal contact lens material since no oxygen is transmitted through the lens to the conjunctiva and cornea. This can cause a number of adverse clinical effects. To solve this problem, a range of oxygen-permeable but rigid materials were developed. These materials, referred to as "rigid gas permeable" or "RGP" materials or lenses, were made by synthetically adding dimethylsiloxane (a form of silicone) to acrylate plastics. Silicones have a very high level of oxygen transport, and amalgamating them with plastics adds this quality, while Figure 25. contact Lens. Modern contact lenses are made the acrylics provide strength and of a mixture of acrylics and silicones that read ily pass hardness. The easy diffusion of oxygen to the cornea. oxygen across sil icones is thought to be a result of an intermediate solubility of oxygen in the gas phase with the gel phase of silicone. Occasionally, the term "gas permeable" is used to describe RGP lenses, but this is potentially misleading, as soft lenses are also gas permeable in that they allow oxygen to move through the lens to the ocu lar surface. In 1999, first silicone hydrogels were launched on the contact lens market. These new materials had the advantage of high oxygen permeability, with the comfort and clinical performance of the conventional hydrogels that had been used for the previous 30 years. These lenses were initially advocated primarily for extended (overnight) wear, although more recently, daily (no overnight) wear silicone hydrogel contact lenses have been launched. DRUG DELIVERY POLYMERS One area of biomaterials research is the use of biodegradable materials in the design of systems for controlled drug delivery. Much of this work is driven by the need for the slow release of insulin for the control of brittle diabetes. Mechanical in sulin delivery pumps are moderately successful but usually are worn on the outside of the body and are cumbersome. The ability to introduce insulin and other drugs in a controlled-release manner using biopolymers has clear advantages in terms of user convenience. Similarly, the slow release of other drugs, such as chemotherapeutic agents, is necessary to maintain the drug in the desired therapeutic range with just a single dose. The basic strategy with some of these systems is to encapsulate drugs in membranes, capsules, microcapsules, liposomes, and hollow fibers. Another approach is to disperse UNCLASSIFIED/ /FOR OFFICIO! 1!SE ON! X 20
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Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 32 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.