Research

The goal of our research group is to develop living tissue engineered strategies to regenerate parts of the human body which have lost their function due to injury or disease. 

We design instructive cellular microenvironments which allow cells of the neo-tissue to restore as much as possible the structure and/or function of the original tissue.  

Important aspects of this microenvironment include the stiffness and charge of the scaffold, the level of oxygen, mechanical loading, the spatial arrangement of inductive and adhesive signals and the delivery of phenotype-modifying small molecules.  

These microenvironments can regulate cell processes including proliferation, differentiation, cell-cell adhesion, mechanical/electrical signal transduction, and expression of tissue-specific proteins.  Using techniques ranging from additive manufacturing (bioprinting) and rapid tissue assembly, it is possible to generate spatially complex tissues containing multiple cell types and materials.