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Updated: May 7, 2026

Fabrication of Spatially Confined Complex Oxides
Published on: July 1, 2013
A photo-triggered layered surface coating producing reactive oxygen species
Doris Gabriel1, Isa P Monteiro, David Huang
1Laboratory for Biomaterials and Drug Delivery, Department of Anesthesiology, Division of Critical Care Medicine, Children's Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School, 300 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA; Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
Abstract:
We report a photoactive surface coating which produces cytotoxic reactive oxygen species (ROS) upon irradiation with near infrared (NIR) light. The coating is assembled layer-by-layer, and consists of cross-linked hyaluronic acid (HA) and poly-l-lysine (PLL) modified with the photoactive molecule pheophorbide a. Pheophorbide a loading can be fine-tuned by varying the number of bilayers, yielding stable materials with the capacity to generate repeated and/or prolonged light-triggered ROS release. Light irradiation of the photoactive surface coatings provides a versatile platform for the spatiotemporal control of events at the material-tissue interface, such as bacterial colonization, platelet adhesion, and mammalian cell attachment.
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