Benjamin McDonald Gives Seminar at Institute for Biology, Engineering, and Medicine
Dr. Benjamin McDonald, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, just gave an I-BEAM (Institute for Biology, Engineering and Medicine) seminar this week (Thursday 11/14 at 11AM in Barus and Holley 190). The seminar title is “Macromolecular Design for Constructing Tissue-Like Soft Materials from the Bottom-Up.”
Below is the abstract:
Living materials can be regarded as composite macromolecular networks permeated by fluid and cells, i.e. cell-laden hydrogels. This network is characterized by a complex and heterogenous spatial organization that spans nanometer to macroscopic length scales, from individual cells with local biomacromolecular networks to tissues and organs. It is well recognized that the surrounding three-dimensional microenvironment provides a diverse array of signals that influence individual cellular processes and enable their collective functioning as coordinated living materials. Therefore, the ability to construct macromolecular networks that replicate specific combinations of physicochemical, biochemical, and mechanical stimuli is crucial to advancing the fundamental biology of healthy and diseased states and ultimately enabling therapeutic intervention. However, the exquisite and specific tailoring of these native macromolecular networks far exceed the capabilities of traditional hydrogel fabrication methods.
The McDonald lab addresses this unresolved challenge through a molecular engineering approach, investigating the relationships between macromolecular structure and assembly, and macroscopic material function. Our research focuses on translating the hierarchical features of protein structure into simplified synthetic polymers. Specifically, we seek to elucidate how chemical composition (primary structure) and shape (tertiary structure) can be modulated to mimic the stimuli-responsive assembly mechanisms and mechanical properties of structural proteins such as tropocollagen and tropoelastin, for the fabrication of hydrogels with features tailorable to a given tissue of interest. We will discuss our recent progress in proteomimetic polymer design and our nascent high throughput pipeline that is expected to enable the investigation of areas such as breast cancer mechanobiology and connective tissue repair.
