Advanced Materials and Drug Delivery
The Advanced Materials and Drug Delivery Cluster Area seeks to create and apply cutting-edge biomaterials for high-impact biomedical applications and to create paradigm-changing approaches and systems for advanced drug delivery.
Novel biomaterials are created to solve critical issues of the field: guide tissue regeneration, design highly selective, robust and biocompatible sensors, and alter surface chemistry to improve tissue/device interfaces. Likewise, we thrive to deliver difficult drugs (proteins, peptides, siRNA, insoluble anticancer drugs, vaccine antigens) in a targeted manner and to hard-to- reach places (cancer cells, brain, eye, lymph nodes) for prolonged periods of time (controlled release) in order to maximize therapeutic efficacy.
Our efforts in biomaterials include designing novel polymer-protein and polymer lipid composites for sensing of influenza virus, prostate cancer antigen and antibiotics. Surface engineering of biomaterials can lead to creation of non-wettable surfaces to control protein and cell adhesion, stem cell culture and differentiation. We blend and modify biocompatible polymers to improve mucoadhesion and stability of entrapped drug molecules. We cross-link phospholipid bilayers and develop lipid-peptide complexes to alter cell processing of biomaterials. We collectively contributed to an extensive toolbox of drug delivery platforms such as mucoadhesive gels, biodegradable implants, multicompartmental polymer nanoparticles, cross-linked liposomes for antigen delivery, and lipoprotein nanodisks. These platform technologies deliver a wide range of drug molecules and vaccine antigens with a focus on large molecule stability and delivery.
Multi-phasic particles of different shapes can be manufactured with precise control over particles geometry by the Wettability Engendered Templated Self-assembly (WETS) method.
Related Press Releases & Articles
- December 11, 2018 / Award
Maria Fawaz and Minzhi Yu receive AHA Predoctoral Fellowships
Maria Fawaz and Minzhi Yu, both graduate students in Anna Schwendeman’s group, have been awarded predoctoral fellowships from the American Heart Association.
- October 31, 2018 / Article
Recent BI Publications
Recent publications from BI Research Groups
- October 23, 2018 / Article
Call for Nominations for BI Innovator Awards
The Biointerfaces Institute seeks nominations for its inaugural round of BI Innovator Awards.
The goal of the Innovator Award is to recognize faculty, graduate student and postdoctoral researchers who are active contributors to the interdisciplinary research, innovation and translational ecosystem at BI.
- August 21, 2018 / Award
James Moon Earns 2018 AAPS Emerging Leader Award
This award recognizes scientists and pharmaceutical professionals who are early in their careers, who have made a significant impact in the pharmaceutical sciences that promotes public health.
- May 21, 2018 / Award
Chestek, Moon and A. Schwendeman Promoted
Cindy Chestek (Biomedical Engineering), James Moon (Pharmaceutical Sciences) and A. Schwendeman (Pharmaceutical Sciences) were promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. Congratulations!
- May 3, 2018 / Article
Tessier elected to the AIMBE College of Fellows Class of 2018
Peter Tessier was elected a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). AIMBE comprises of leaders in medical and biological engineering, consisting of academic, industrial, professional society councils and elected fellows.
- May 1, 2018 / Award
Congratulations Microposter Winners
Thank you to all of the poster presenters who attended the BIRG 2nd Microposter Session and congratulations to our winners!
- April 25, 2018 / Award
Kevin Golovin receives ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award
The ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award recognizes exceptional and unusually interesting work produced by doctoral students from the Rackham School of Graduate Studies.
- April 16, 2018 / YouTube Video
Tuteja lab reports on new omniphobic coatings that repel almost everything
In a paper recently published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, the Tuteja lab reports on recent findings on omniphobic coatings that could be applied on a variety of surfaces to repel almost any liquid.
- April 2 @ 1:00 pm
Oral PhD Defense – Lukasz Ochyl
Title: “Preparation and Characterization of Cell Membranes for Cancer Immunotherapy”
Lukasz Ochyl, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Chair: James Moon
- March 14, 2018 / Press Release
Press Release – 3D Printing for Medicine
A collaborative project from the Lahann, Luker and Krebsbach labs reports on new jet writing technique for printing 3D structures for biomedical applications.
- March 1, 2018 / Article
Interdisciplinary team of BI researchers publish new article on 3-D Jet Writing Technique
The article entitled “3D Jet Writing: Functional Microtissues Based on Tessellated Scaffold Architectures” appears in Advanced Materials.
- February 22 @ 2:00 pm
Seminar on “Materials for Biodegradable Electronics” – John Rogers, Northwestern University
This event is co-hosted by the University of Michigan ACS POLY/PMSE Student Chapter and the Biointerfaces Institute Researcher Group.
- February 21, 2018 / YouTube Video
Kotov awarded Gold Prize Award in the Mobile World Scholar Challenge
Nick Kotov’s work on biomimetic composites is recognized by the Mobile World Scholar Challenge
- January 30 @ 12:00 pm
RegenHu Presentation
Marc Thurner, CEO of RegenHu, will be discussing the company’s line of 3D bioprinters.
- January 25, 2018 / Featured
New Science Article from the Kotov Lab
The article entitled “Chiromagnetic Nanoparticles and Gels” appeared in the January 19 issue of Science.
- January 23, 2018 / Press Release
Diabetes and Its Complications Challenge Seed Funds Awards
We are pleased to announce our selection for the Diabetes and Its Complications Challenge seed fund competition.
- November 29, 2017 / Press Release
Nanoparticles self-assemble into nanoshells
Research in the Kotov group demonstrated the self-assembly of inorganic nanoparticles into nanoshells, which can potentially be used for gene delivery applications. More details here.
- November 29, 2017 / Featured
Scaffold-Based Lung Organoid
Lonnie Shea’s research group developed scaffold technologies to grow lung organoids.
- November 29, 2017 / Featured
Kevlar-Based Cartilage
Nick Kotov develops artificial cartilage materials from Kevlar-based nanofibers.
Our Advanced Materials and Drug Delivery Researchers
Neural Engineering
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James Moon
John Gideon Searle Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences; Associate Professor: Biomedical Engineering Research Focus: Advanced Materials and Drug Delivery Contact Information:moonjj@umich.eduThe Moon Group develops therapeutics and diagnostics at the interface of immunology and engineering. Research addresses drug delivery systems for enhancing delivery of antigen and adjuvant to lymphoid organs and manipulating immune functions in the context of cancer, infectious diseases, and autoimmunity.
Joerg Lahann
Professor of Chemical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Macromolecular Science and Engineering Research Focus: Advanced Materials and Drug Delivery, Single Cell Technologies Contact Information:lahann@umich.eduResearch in the Lahann Lab focuses on surface engineering, advanced polymers, biomimetic materials, engineered stem cell microenvironments, drug delivery, and nano-scale self-assembly.
Steven Schwendeman
Ara G. Paul Professor and Department Chair of Pharmaceutical Sciences; Professor of Biomedical Engineering Research Focus: Advanced Materials and Drug Delivery Contact Information:schwende@umich.eduThe Schwendeman Group develops advanced polymer-based controlled drug delivery approaches including vaccine delivery from poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA); PLGA nanoparticle formulation; and development of mucoadhesive polymers/formulations for intraoral and intranasal delivery.
Jinsang Kim
Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Macromolecular Science and Engineering and Director of Macromolecular Science and Engineering Program Research Focus: Advanced Materials and Drug Delivery Contact Information:jinsang@umich.eduKim’s Smart Functional Polymer Lab explores functional polymeric materials and their nanostructural assembly to develop advanced polymeric objects. The research focuses on the rational molecular design, chemical and/or biological synthesis, and molecular assembly of functional polymers.
Anish Tuteja
Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Macromolecular Science and Engineering Research Focus: Advanced Materials and Drug Delivery Contact Information:atuteja@umich.eduThe Tuteja Group research is in surface science, including developing super-omniphobic surfaces (surfaces on which liquids bead up and roll- off). They have developed a novel technique to fabricate nano- and micro- particles of any size, shape, or chemistry. The developed particles’ shape, size, and composition can be used to engineer bio-distribution, skin or lung uptake, intra-cellular localization, and cell response.
Peter Tessier
Albert M. Mattocks Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Chemical Engineering Research Focus: Nanotechnology, Advanced Materials and Drug Delivery Contact Information:ptessier@umich.eduThe Tessier lab aims to develop next generation technologies for designing, discovering, engineering, characterizing, formulating and delivering biologics ranging from small affinity peptides to large monoclonal antibodies for molecular imaging, diagnostic and therapeutic applications.