New Jersey Center for Biomaterials

The RESBIO team was formed to address these major challenges in the development of new polymeric biomaterials :

The pace of biomaterials development is slow and available polymeric biomaterials lack chemical diversity
Biomaterials design requires the simultaneous optimization of a large number of interconnected parameters and variables
New biomaterials are explored one-at-a-time and the biological properties of most biomaterials candidates are never fully characterized

To increase chemical diversity, RESBIO adopts a combinatorial approach to polymer design. To increase the number of materials it can study, RESBIO works toward rapid throughput in both synthesis and characterization. These efforts are focused in Core S - Combinatorial Polymer Science and Rapid Throughput Characterization.

The centrality of cell-material interactions and the utility of predictive modeling for RESBIO led to the creation of Cores M, P, H and C. Core M focuses on generating in-depth understanding of cell responses to materials of different stiffness or Mechanotransduction, as is commonly known in the field. The main goal of Core P is to develop critical cell morphometric descriptors by In-Situ Cell Profiling using advanced microscopic techniques. Core H, Highthroughput Fabrication and Evaluation, supports Cores M and P by providing gradient substrates that allow rapid evaluation of cell-material interactions in Core M and rapid data generation in Core P over a wide range of materials. This allows quick experimental screening of polymers to infer the characteristics of an optimal polymer for a given application which could be synthesized in Core S, at the same time providing experimental data to Core C, Computational Modeling and Biomaterials Informatics, to develop predictive models. The predictive models are, in turn, expected to play a critical role in discovery and design of new polymeric biomaterials.