Our current research focuses on designing biomaterials and sensors for tissue engineering applications. This multidisciplinary area couples expertise in engineering, life sciences and clinical medicine to understand the body's own biomaterials (i.e., the proteins and carbohydrates of the extracellular matrix), the cellular machinery by which the biomaterials are assembled and degraded, and how the dynamic microscale interactions of these components influence tissue physiology. We design, synthesize and characterize biomaterials created from naturally derived and synthetic biopolymers. Particular interest centers on delineating quantitative relationships between properties of three-dimensional cell scaffolds and the elicited signaling mechanisms of cells grown within the materials. Current work focuses on 1) scaffolds to support neural regeneration and transplant of neural stem cells; 2) in vitro models of neurophysiology and breast cancer; 3) novel sensor platforms for mapping hypoxia in areas of high metabolic activity, such as tissues undergoing regeneration or tumor morphogenesis; and 4) "sense and treat" nano-diagnostics and therapeutics for metastatic cancer.

This work is funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Henry Luce Foundation, the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund and UMBC.