Tissue engineering would greatly benefit from new materials possessing very good mechanical

stiffness, and, yet, allow for soft tissue and bones to effectively grow around them. Assuring that

such materials can be incorporated on an implant represents an ultimate goal of doctors and that

would be particularly appreciated by the patients. Since a while hydrogels have been identified as a

very promising class of materials, but their softness or in other words mechanical weakness is one of

the main hurdles of their application. We will investigate in this project an incorporation of rather

hard inorganic component into hydrogels –carbonate based particles. The purpose of these truly

biocompatible additives is twofold: on one hand, they can provide ions necessary for mineralization

of hydrogels, while on the other hand, they would enhance mechanical properties of the otherwise

soft hydrogels. Physico-chemical analytical characterization of the prepared samples, including

crystallographic characterization of prepared particles, will be carried out. One of the most

important properties of the new coatings prepared in this project will be their mechanical

properties. They will be investigated by a device which allows for local measurements of mechanical

properties of materials possessing a soft polymeric and a hard inorganic phases. The adherence of

cells to the surface of these new coatings will be also studied.