Huiyuan Wang |
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email: huiyuan AT
stanford DOT edu
Dept: Materials Science
& Engineering
B.S. Polymer Science
and Engineering
University of Science and Technology of China
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Biodegradable, recombinant protein hydrogels are finding
widespread applications including cell encapsulation for
three-dimensional cultures, controlled bioactive molecule delivery, and
tissue engineering. They can be designed from the amino acid sequence
up to mimic the biochemical and physical characteristics of native
extracellular matrices. This design strategy enables the tuning of
several material properties including mechanics, degradation rate, and
cell-protein interactions. My project involves the synthesis of
co-polymer hydrogels based on blends of engineered elastin-like
proteins and synthetic polymers. A particular emphasis is the study of
hydrogel microstructure to obtain fully transparent gels that better
mimic the native cell microenvironment and to create hydrophobic
domains within the hydrogel system for controlled delivery of
hydrophobic drugs.
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