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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/ /FOR. Ol'l'ICIAL USE ONLY
Dialysis works on the principles of
natural diffusion of metabolic waste
products in the blood across a
semipermeable membrane . Waste
products in high concentration in the
blood will diffuse across the
membrane. The membrane allows the
passage of certain-sized molecules
across it but prevents the passage of
other, larger molecules of the blood,
thus helping to get rid of waste
products. Figure 31 illustrates this
idea. The blood cells are kept on the
outside of the membrane (orange)
while waste product solutes (violet
and yellow dots) pass through .
Advances in bioengineering and in the
technical aspects of dialysis machines have made hemodialysis a safe and effective
procedure.
The design of dialyzers is primarily an exercise in biomaterial selection. Biomembrane
materials play the critical role in cleansin g the blood, but they must not damage the
blood or provoke thrombus. The most common biomaterial used in dialyzers is a
semipermeable membrane made of cellulose acetate trade-named Cuprophane™.
Dialyzer membranes come with different pore sizes. Nanotechnology is being used in
some of the most recent high-flux membranes to create a uniform pore size. The goal
of high-flux membranes is to pass relatively large molecules, such as beta-2-
microglobulin (MW 11,600 daltons), but not albumin (MW ~66,400 daltons). Dialysis
membrane materials are crucial to the practical performance of medical hemodialysis
systems. These systems/materia ls support the su rvival of milli ons of people in kidney
failure that undergo routine dialysis, usually for several hours during the day and three
to four times a week.
Summary and Recommendations
The performance of biomaterials underlies the success of many medical devices that
must be acceptable to body tissues. These materials often serve critical-perhaps life
and-death-functions and, so, require large amounts of money and t im e to rigorously
test. This appears to be the reason the biomedical industry is slow to produce and
accept new materials.
Existing materials for implants are generally based on materials that have been
available for more than 20 years. Biodegradable materials, particularly the polylactide
and glycolide, have a long history of safe and effective use. Building on this solid
foundation, most of the innovation is occurring in devising new ways to embody the
materials and apply them to new applications. Thus, the markets are expanding for
biomaterials, and physicians can look forward to new products that will help speed
patient recovery.
UNCLASSIFIED/ {FOR OFFICIO ls. Ulilii &HLY
Figure 29. Cuprophane Membrane Passes Blood Waste
Products (Violet and Orange Dots) Through Pores and
Blocks Passage of Red Blood Cells
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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.