We have an ongoing research efforts which focus on developing and characterizing novel biomaterials as well as modifications to existing biomaterials to improve their function.  These activities span numerous medical applications such as new biomaterial development, stent graft technology, cardiovascular applications of biomaterials, and wound healing treatment using biomaterials.  Biomaterials have had tremendous clinical success as a result of significant efforts within basic research to help improve attributes such as their composition, architecture, and biological response.  The design inputs of these attributes varies depending upon the research or clinical need of a material, and in this way biomaterial specificity has been established in the field.  An important objective in the development of bioengineered materials for tissue regeneration is the synthesis and evaluation of polymer scaffolds with desirable properties, including strength, elasticity and biocompatibility. The use of natural or near-natural starting materials in polymer structures has the advantages of an established level of performance and congruence, but human sources are not always available. An important example is human elastin, one of the most abundant proteins in organs that require flexibility as part of their essential functions, including the skin, lungs, blood vessels, and bladder.  In our lab, a project of interest focuses on the development of an all human-derived scaffold containing elastin.

Tropoelastin scaffolds are also conducive to cell attachment and growth, and may promote tissue regeneration processes. Human embryonic palatal mesenchymal cells proliferate much more rapidly on tropoelastin scaffolds than within the standard tissue culture-treated polystyrene matrix. Various human epithelial cells have also been shown to proliferate in tropoelastin scaffolds. Tropoelastin, elastin and peptides derived from these molecules strongly attract fibroblasts and other regenerative cells from the surrounding healthy tissue by chemotaxis. These data suggest that tropoelastin may accelerate tissue growth and regeneration in a supporting scaffold that self-assembles during fibrillogenesis. Tropoelastin would participate as a reinforcing material in a newly constructed, cell-based tissue, which usually lack elastin during adult tissue regeneration.  The presence of elastin would more closely resemble the provisional matrix that is created during the development of tissues in utero.