**6. Conclusions**

Various technologies and methods have been applied to obtain thin bio-coatings at the interface between inert substrates and close cellular microenvironments. Most of the processes have been developed with the aim to produce either single layer, composite, or multi-layer coatings, with application specificity. Technological advancements have encouraged research to challenge biomimetic environments. Laser deposition techniques have been successfully used to fabricate bio-coatings, in particular pulsed laser deposition for inorganic materials and matrix assisted pulsed laser evaporation for both organic and inorganic materials. They have since progressed and were found applicable to either inorganic, organic, or inorganic–organic multi-layers or blended bio-coatings. Thus, combinatorial-PLD and combinatorial-MAPLE were proposed as alternatives to classic combinatorial chemical and physical deposition methods to synthesize biomimetic assemblies of complex composite and hybrid materials, with gradient of composition. C-MAPLE offers the unique characteristic of combining, in a controlled process, blended or multi-layer coating configurations of compounds dissolved in different solvent solutions, without the impediment of not being able to choose combinations with non-mixable solvents. Such combinations could allow for the synthesis of new materials with properties close to those of the native biological environment. in vitro evaluations of the bio-coatings fabricated by laser technologies confirmed their biocompatibility and capacity of modulating cell behavior. By combining the newly developed laser technologies with other chemical or physical methods, grea<sup>t</sup> perspectives could be open for domains like tissue engineering, nanomedicine, or controlled drug delivery in cancer research.

**Funding:** Partial financial support was given by the Romanian Ministry of Education and Research, under Romanian National Nucleu Program LAPLAS VI (contract No. 16N/2019) and by the Structural and Functional Proteomics Research Program of the Institute of Biochemistry of the Romanian Academy.

**Acknowledgments:** This review was entirely conceived, written, and processed under lockdown conditions during the COVID-19 global pandemic.We acknowledge UEFISCDI, Grant Nos: PCCDI63/2018 (PN-III-P1-1.2-PCCDI2017-0728) and TE7/2018.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
