Committed to translate new materials for medical use, he focuses on developing biomaterials to deliver RNA therapeutics and engineering biointerfaces to control cell behavior. His work has resulted in over 20 publications including papers, patents and patent applications. These patents have been licensed to chemical and biotechnology companies, and several products that have been commercialized.
In molecular and cellular therapies, it is crucial that macromolecular drugs and stem cells are delivered into proper locations in vivo in order to execute their functions. However, the rational design of delivery systems is often laborious and inefficient, since the design criteria are difficult to define. Sitting at the interface of materials science and biotechnology, my research aims to develop novel delivery systems for molecular and cellular therapies. To accelerate this process, I have developed combinatorial methods that are capable of parallel synthesizing a large number of biomaterials, and fabricated microarrays as high-throughput screening tools to efficiently identify candidates. These efforts have led to an advanced system with great potential in gene therapy, drug testing, discovery, and tissue engineering applications. I continue to focus my efforts on elucidating the mechanism of molecular and cellular therapies, and translating new biomaterials for medical use.