Current medical materials are made from natural biomaterials such as collagen or xenographic tissue such as heart leaflets. These materials are not only expensive due to fabrication costs, but also immunogenic and ethically questionable. Synthetic polymers incorporating peptide-like groups are cheap, easy to make, and can be tailored to specific applications without ethical or immunological concerns.

Our research is focused on designing polyesters and polyurethanes based on our understanding of host immune response, which we utilize to create innovative biomaterials-based solutions. These materials are used for controlling hemorrhages, treating bacterial colonization of wounds, re-aligning the immune response to biomaterials, and creating synthetic equivalents of bioengineered skin.

Platform of Peptide-Like Biomaterials

Over the years, we have created a vast library of functionalized peptidomimetic polymers including thermoresponsive polyesters. The image below displays the scheme we use for our applications.