The Department for Functional Materials in Medicine and Dentistry (FMZ) at the University Hospital Würzburg (Universitätsklinikum Würzburg, UKW) is a materials research focused department embedded in a clinical setting as part of the university clinic. Research activities comprise surface modification of functional materials for biointerface engineering, tailored bioactive polymer synthesis, biological evaluation of materials, design and preparation of artificial extracellular matrices and hierarchical biomaterials systems, biofabrication of tissue models, and the preparation of polymer based micro- and nanohydrogels as carriers for drugs and for theranostics. These interdisciplinary activities are performed by a team of chemists, biologists, engineers and materials scientists and structured in 5 research platforms: cell-material interaction, bioactive inorganic scaffolds, Biofabrication, Artificial Extracellular Matrix, and Nano-Biotechnology.
FMZ has highly equipped research facilities, including a high-end SEM (Zeiss Crossbeam CB 340 SEM), seven MEW 3D printers and extensive chemical and polymer synthesis, processing and biological tests, cell culture facilities, microbiology and molecular biology laboratories, chemical technologies and hoods, stereomicroscopes, fluorescent microscopes, Raman microscopes, atomic force microscopes, glove boxes and mechanical testing devices. The infrastructure covers the complete value chain of material development, including chemistry laboratories, physical and material characterisation labs.