Research

With an aging population, the demand for synthetic tissue scaffolds assisting the repair and regenerative reconstruction of skeletal tissue defects resulting from trauma, aging, cancer and metabolic diseases is rising.

Our lab is interested in the following areas:

1) developing new biomaterial- and stem cell-based approaches towards bone and cartilage tissue regeneration, particularly dealing with hard-to-heal tissue defects resulting from aging, diabetes, and traumatic injuries;

2) improving the osteointegration of and reducing periprosthetic infections associated with existing orthopedic metallic implants; 

3) identifying novel factors regulating stem cell renewal and skeletal tissue regeneration and new targets for the development of disease modifying drugs of osteoarthritis (OA).

Many of the synthetic scaffolds we designed are programmed with unique physical properties to facilitate facile surgical delivery (injectable formulations; minimally invasive in vivo deployment), tunable & predictive in vivo degradation profiles, and spatially controlled presentation and temporally controlled release of bioactive factors for regulating stem/progenitor cell fate within the tissue niche environment.