Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Biomaterials are becoming increasingly important in the development of new strategies for diagnosing, preventing, and treating disease. For example, significant advancements are being made in the use of biomaterials for delivering drugs to therapeutic targets, replacing and stimulating the growth of tissues, and imaging disease processes. A major challenge in this research area is to impart the materials with the desired biological functions, while at the same time retaining important properties such as biocompatibility. The proposed research program involves the use of organic and polymer chemistry approaches to design and synthesize new biomaterials with improved properties and novel biological functions. One goal is to develop methods to prepare surface functionalized and biodegradable vesicles. These vesicles have a wide variety of potential applications in imaging, drug delivery, and therapy. A second project involves new macromolecular contrast agents that can be used for magnetic resonance imaging of biological processes and diseases, including cancer, diabetes, and atherosclerosis. A third area of research is the development of antibiotics that act by selectively disrupting the membranes of bacterial cells. Overall, this research program aims to design new chemical tools for biomaterials research with the goal of preparing new systems for the treatment and diagnosis of disease.