(126c) Overcoming Obstacles to Brain Repair Using Biomaterials
AIChE Annual Meeting
2017
2017 Annual Meeting
Materials Engineering and Sciences Division
Area Plenary: Leaders in Biomaterials (Invited Talks)
Monday, October 30, 2017 - 2:00pm to 2:45pm
Research in my laboratory over the past decade has focused on the generation of hydrogel biomaterials to support the formation of a reparative niche within diseased or injured sites that can block or prevent inhibitory signals from dominating the repair process, while providing pro-repair signals that can guide new tissue formation. The goal of our approach is to use engineered materials to âunlockâ the regenerative capacity of damaged or diseased tissue to promote repair. The premise of our approach is that all tissues in the body have the capacity to repair through local stem or progenitor cells, but that due to unfavorable environmental conditions during the normal healing process they are not able to do so. In this talk, I will describe our approach to overcome physical and chemical barriers to brain repair after stroke using biomaterials.