Associate Professor, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science & Engineering
Program Focus
My research interests focus on the use of natural polymers in the design of drug delivery systems and tissue engineering scaffolds. In the design of drug delivery systems, polymer degradation and drug release rates are important to proper delivery of various large and small molecules. Drug-carrier interactions are of interest to determine release mechanisms and provide protection to large molecule proteins from enzymatic degradation. For tissue engineering scaffolds, cell-polymer interactions will be probed to determine the effects of polymer surface chemistry, scaffold architecture, and graded chemistries on cell maturation, differentiation, and proliferation. Efficacy of tissue regeneration both in vitro and in vivo will be investigated.
Current Projects
- Nanoparticle delivery systems for vaccine development
- Nanocomposites for medical devices
- Advanced polymer processing with actives