Bioactive surface coatings are important for biomaterials that formation of thrombotic emboli and inflammation is avoided. Bioactive coatings for oral implants and bioactive composite materials are also done.Non porous alumina or hydroxyapatite (HA) are used to coat them on the surface of the biomaterials. Bioactive coatings on metallic implants facilitate joining between the prosthesis and the biomaterial.Bioactive calcium phosphate ceramics and bioactive composites and coatings, are used for living tissues. Bioactive glasses and ceramics are also made.

Cell culture assays (MTT assay) can be done with the cells with which the material will be in contact with to determine the concentration at which the material is toxic to cells. Then depending on the activity you are expecting you can do the corresponding marker assays. For antibiotic sensitivity testing proceed with antibacterial studies with corresponding bacteria.

ISO standards protocols will also guide you to perform the invitro test.

In the case of biomaterials for bone grafts, soaking in artificial media mimicking the chemical composition of human blood plasma is the most common in vitro technique. The solutions comprise simulated body fluid (SBF) Hank’s balanced salt solution (HBSS) and some other ones. Their chemical composition and preparation procedure might be found in Internet. Among them, SBF is the most popular one. Various experiments with cells might be used as well.

Hi,  what kind of cells do you work on ? These tests will strongly depend on which (gain of) functions you want to highlight: proliferation, adhesion, differentiation, protein secretion...

You may also want to test the impact of the biomaterial on other aspects of cellular function in addition to survival. You could measure adhesion, cell division, and also assay conditioned media for the presence of trophic and/or inflammatory molecules.

Hi,  I believe that because you are working with films and coatings, you could you use in vitro biactivity test with SBF solution. Through this solution,  you induce the formation of apatite coating on the film.  Then,  if you get positive results,  you could use cells to assign viability and toxicity.  

Arun Bhupathi: Thanks for your reply, could you please provide me more details for MTT? ant standard methods etc

Sergey V. Dorozhkin: Thanks for your reply. please provide more details for  Hank’s balanced salt solution (HBSS) and testing method

Dear Adriana Martel and Patrycja Domalik-Pyzik; many thanks, publications are very useful

The testing method for HBSS is similar to that of SBF. The details on HBSS should be found in Internet.

SBF solutions, to me are not mimicking anything. they do not possess any of the organic materials present which affect processes. Remember this process is PRECIPITATION from a saturated solution and there are numerous paper showing this effect on diverse materials such as bamboo, which is clearly not biocompatible but drives the precipitation process. Cell culture is a good start, but I would recommend using primary cells rather than cell lines. Most journals (if you are looking to publish) are moving away from taking work using cell lines. Measure gene and protein expression to get a more complete picture as well as cell numbers/metabolic activity as a starting point.

The SBF and many other similar tests just give you an idea about the mineralization capacity of the material in a saturated solution. This may not be a good measure of bioactivity though as already mentioned in the previous answers. 

If you are going to use these kind of tests though, you may want to consider a more rapid and versatile method that we developed recently: "Rapid Screening of Mineralization Capacity of Biomaterials by Means of Quantification of Enzymatically Deposited Calcium Phosphate" in Tissue Engineering Part C: Methods 20(10): 838-850

you can do cell compatibility  using any primary cells and its expression studies. And you can keep SBF studies as a backup data