Grant: Alliance Grants

This collaboration with the University of Wisconsin is aimed to develop a graphite-based material processing methods that produces innovative toxin-free biodegradable quantum-sized materials to tackle challenges in biomedical applications. Existing nanoparticles used for biomedical application are of large size (10~100nm) and contains residue toxic chemical substances resulting from material processing, which severely affect the biocompatibility and limit the functionality of the biomaterials. Many biomolecules and cellular structures are much smaller than the particles used for biomedical engineering. For instance, DNA molecules are 1-2nm in diameter and pores on cell nuclei membrane are less than 9 nm. We believe bringing particle size down to quantum regime (less than 5nm), closer to the size of biomolecules and cellular structure, will open up new possibilities for drug delivery, tissue engineering and therapeutic medicines. The applicant has developed a laser ablative materials processing method using MHz frequency femtosecond lasers, which could generate three dimensional nanostructures with unique spatial architecture and rare phases that are hard to obtain by any other means. The generated nanostructure is toxin-free and its morphology, architecture and properties are particularly suitable for drug delivery, theragnostics and tissue engineering. The University of Wisconsin brings expertise in regenerative medicine, cell biology and nature-mimicking biomaterials. Together, we will investigate the method of generating carbon-based quantum-sized structures from graphite. Graphite is selected as starting material due to its biodegradability. Earlier research has shown that carbon particles can be easily cleared out of organic system. Through nanoscale dimensional hierarchy and bio-chemical properties the targeted delivery, controlled release of therapeutic agents, theranostics, therapy and will be leveraged. The proposed research project provides opportunity for high quality personnel training and collaborative research while being profoundly beneficial to the Canadian economy and healthcare system through its innovations.