From Flush to Future

David Kisailus is turning urine into medical-grade material for bone and teeth implants and water purification. Learn how Kisailus is making bone implants more affordable through this new process of producing calcium phosphate from urea. Kisailus, a UCI professor of materials science and engineering, is the director of the well-known Biomimetrics and Nanostructured Materials Lab.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This is
The Lab Beat where we
catch the pulse
of cutting-edge labs at UC
Irvine's engineering school.
I'm Natalie Tso.
Yes, that's the sound of a toilet.
We usually don't want
what's flushed away,
but UCI Professor
of Materials Science and Engineering
David Kisailus thought differently.
His research team
is turning urine into material
that can be used for teeth

(00:21):
and bone implants.
Where urine comes into play
is that urine contains urea
and urea is a molecule
that if you break it down
using a catalyst —an
enzyme called urease — urea
will break into ammonia and CO2.
Their team engineered a yeast
that breaks the urea down and triggers

(00:42):
the creation of calcium phosphate.
That's the same material
that makes up our bones and teeth.
Now, will there be any urine
in the implants?
First of all,
when we did the experiment,
the urine wasn't, it wasn't made.
It was bought from a company
so it was artificial urine.
So it's just an ammonia-based compound
that we want.
But at the end of the day,

(01:04):
the urine
doesn't get into the material itself.
The component urea
from the urine goes into the cell
but what's pumped out
is just pure calcium phosphate.
Millions of Americans
get bone grafts a year.
They can cost thousands of dollars
so this new process
will make those life-changing procedures
more affordable.

(01:25):
As our population ages,
more and more people, including myself,
I played sports my whole life,
so I definitely will need an implant
somewhere at some time in my life.
You know, cost of materials
will always play a factor
in whether people can afford
to have implants.
So I think by having a process
where you can make calcium
phosphate implant-based materials

(01:46):
at low cost,
I think it will enable a broader
swath of folks
to be able to get these procedures done.
He also explains
another use for the calcium phosphate
they make in their new process.
It also happens to be a good scavenger
of metals and fluorine.
So one of the issues
we have in our society
today is a lack of clean drinking water.

(02:08):
So if you can actually make materials
that may be able to scavenge
heavy metals or fluorine,
things that would
negatively affect our health
and drinking water,
that also provides value.
UC Irvine Professor of Materials
Science and Engineering
David Kisailus is taking
what's flushed away
to make more affordable
bone implants and cleaner water.

(02:29):
I'm Natalie Tso for The Lab Beat
which is brought to you by the UC Irvine
Samueli School of Engineering.