Thrust II: Functional Biomaterials

Research Focuses

The Functional Biomaterials thrust will focus on starting pilot research programs addressing some of the aforementioned critical unmet needs by capitalizing on current capabilities to

  1. engineer new instructive or bioactive biomaterial systems that can regulate cellular or tissue behavior and/or physiologic processes (e.g., wound healing).
  2. develop innovative smart stimuli responsive biomaterials that enable feedback regulation and communication with biologic systems.
  3. use state-of-the-art imaging technologies to better understand cell-biomaterial interactions and biomaterial properties and responses to external stimuli. (This will be one of several areas the Functional Imaging thrust will interconnect with this thrust.)

Background Heading link

Biomaterials result from the convergence of engineering, medicine, materials science and biology. A biomaterial is “a material intended to interface with biological systems to evaluate, treat, augment, or replace any tissue, organ or function of the body”. Clinical applications that have revolutionized modern medicine and healthcare include lenses for the eye, vascular grafts and heart valves, pacemakers, coronary stents, wound coverings, and orthopedic and dental implants. Biomaterial design typically focused on biocompatibility (i.e., not eliciting an immune response or chronic inflammation) while having the functionality (e.g., mechanics, optical transparency, hydrophobility, etc.) required for the specific application. More recently, biomaterials have been used as biodegradable systems to guide the formation of functional replacement tissues in the body when they have been damaged or lost due to injury or disease. Second generation biomaterials are being engineered to be “instructive” or “bioactive” so that they can communicate with cells and/or tissue in the body, and also “smart” so they can reciprocally receive and respond to signal from cells and/or tissues. These instructive biomaterials can be designed to present cues to their surroundings. These signals can be soluble (e.g., delivery of bioactive factors) and/or insoluble (e.g., via biomaterial chemical and/or physical properties). In addition, the temporal and spatial presentation of these signals at different time and length scales, respectively, can endow these materials with powerful control over a biologic microenvironment. Bidirectionality of signaling is enabled with smart materials that are external stimuli-responsive. The microenvironment (e.g., pH, temperature, light, mechanical forces, magnetic fields, etc.) in turn can guide changes in the behavior (e.g., degradation, stiffness, architecture, controlled release, etc.) of these materials. These biomaterials can then be used, for example, to develop model tissue 4 systems to study important cell, developmental biology and wound healing questions, to create complex engineered tissues and regenerative medicine strategies, to develop disease therapeutics, to create pathologic tissue models to study disease, and to develop high throughput systems for drug testing.