Novel biomaterials for central nervous system regeneration
Biomaterial scaffolds for spinal cord injury repair
The injury environment after spinal cord injury is dynamic and complex, with multiple cell types and cytokines, which motivates our approach to create tunable, multifunctional biomaterials to combat processes that exacerbate the damage from an initial insult. These injectable materials have the ability to deliver a combination of different classes of therapeutics (e.g., small molecules, peptides, and monoclonal antibodies) to the injury site. In collaboration with Dr. Itzhak Fischer and Dr. Ying Jin at Drexel University, we are studying how these materials improve functional recovery of the spinal cord after injury. The overall goal of this work is to determine the combination of cargo that best improves tissue regeneration. Although our current work focuses on the spinal cord, this platform is broadly applicable to different tissues and injury environments.
Reprogramming cells to alter mechanotransductive signaling
Development and application of synthetic post-translational circuits
Our laboratory has contributed to the development of a novel post-translational circuit, coupling synthetic phosphorylation networks with split fluorescent and luminescent proteins, denoted as SPN-FLUX (synthetic phosphorylation networks with fluorescence and luminescence expansion). This platform provides an avenue isolated from native kinetics by which inducible protein-protein interactions are utilized to study cells’ interactions with their environment. We propose to use these inducible protein interactions to dictate response to mechanical forces applied to the matrix, with the goal of creating synthetic cells that have therapeutic potential in pathologies characterized by changes in tissue mechanics.