Smart Biomaterials

Injectable or flowable biomaterial scaffolds are uniquely suited to aid tissue regeneration by molding to a wound site or by allowing minimally-invasive applications.

Our laboratory is developing an injectable, interconnected microporous gel scaffold assembled from annealed microgel building blocks whose chemical and physical properties can be tailored by microfluidic fabrication. These Microporous Annealed Particle (MAP) gels allow cells to immediately infiltrate through interconnected voids and rapidly form three-dimensional cellular networks.

We are further developing this injectable system to serve as a stem cell delivery vehicle, a drug delivery scaffold for cancer immunotherapy, and an injectable small analyte sensor.

There is also a need for shaped hydrogel-based microparticles in biosensing, tissue assembly, and photonic crystals. By integrating inertial microfluidics and optics, we generate complex microparticles with multi-functionality at high throughput for advanced cellular and biomolecular assays.

The lab is building particle systems to transfer, detect, image, analyze, and amplify signal from cells, proteins, and nucleotides while creating materials that interface seamlessly with tissues, mitigating the foreign body response.