CAREER: Dopant-free conductive bioelastomer development

University Of Texas At Arlington, Arlington TX

Investigators

Abstract

Non-technical section: This CAREER award by the Biomaterials Program in the Division of Materials Research is to develop new unicomponent conductive biodegradable elastomers. Conductive materials are critical for advanced tissue regeneration, smart drug release and bioelectronics with high impacts on research and industry. Current conductive materials contain multiple components, which result in complexity, instability and uncontrollability of the material properties which limits their applications in biomedicine. The proposed unicomponent materials can address above challenges to bridge the gap between conductive materials and biomedicine. The proposed mechanism and methodologies can be utilized to design new conductive materials for broader applications, not just limited to biomedicine. Furthermore, the education and outreach for k-12, undergraduate and graduate students is integrated with the multidisciplinary cutting-edge material research. The challenge/interactive-driven teaching will be designed for undergraduate/graduate students with emphasis on the participation of Hispanic students and enhanced curriculum. Elementary and high school students will be encouraged to join the Interaction-Enhanced Biomaterial Program along with their families and teachers. A workshop on conductive materials and biomedicine will be further organized for high school, undergraduate and graduate students. Technical section: Biodegradable conductive materials are gaining increased interest for tissue regeneration, drug release and bioelectronics. The existing conductive biodegradable materials are multicomponent and contain non-degradable conductive additives or dopants. These complex components lead to low conductive stability or dramatically affect mechanical properties with risks of toxicity and complications in vivo, which limit their biomedical applications. Furthermore, it is hard to tune the complex multicomponent systems for specific material properties, and to precisely understand fundamental structure-conductivity relationships. To this end, this CAREER project will develop unicomponent, biodegradable, elastic and conductive materials without extra dopants/additives. The research objectives include 1) understand structure-property-function of the new polymer system, 2) develop new multifunctional conductive polymers, and 3) evaluate material biocompatibility and conductivity-cellular function relationship. Furthermore, k-12, undergraduate and graduate students will be educated and trained in this cutting-edge research project in the innovative biomaterial development and applications through various approaches with emphasis on Hispanic student participation and family/teacher involvement.