As a polymer chemist and material scientist with broad-based professional training in biomedical science,
tissue engineering, and biomaterials, I have focused my laboratory research program on synthetic polymeric biomaterials that are important for various biomedical applications. During my postdoctoral research at McGill University, Montreal, Canada, examined the effect of size of calcium phosphate crystals for arthritis. During my second postdoctoral training at University of Louisiana at Lafayette, I examined various polymeric systems for drug delivery and bone tissue engineering applications using osteoblasts. We also detailed new mechanisms of internalizations of carbon nanotubes in HeLa cancer cells for tunable loading of an anticancer drug, doxorubicin. Since, starting my own laboratory in Fall-2016, I have focused on synthetic materials with tunable properties such as polymer crystals, three-dimensional porous scaffolds, cell-biomaterial interactions for bone tissue defects, a poorly understood and highly prevalent bone condition that affects bone quality. Our recent studies on chitosan-based 3Dscaffolds represents an opportunity to overcome a major roadblock in the understanding of the tumor in a three-dimensional environment, closely mimicking the tumor micro-environment. Our group is at the forefront of chitosan scaffold research, having developed new systems for cellular modulation, as well as
variety of in-vitro studies for osteoblast and cancer cell behavior. My group focuses on engineering materials for biomedical applications and has broad and strong expertise in biomaterials, bioimaging, cell-ECM interactions, material characterizations, tissue engineering, and advanced drug delivery systems. My group has research experience in the following projects (a) development of synthetic materials for bone tissue engineering, (b) smart polymers for targeted and controlled drug delivery, and (c) nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems. My research team comprises of undergraduate and graduate students and collaborators with backgrounds in cellular and molecular biology, biomechanics, polymer chemistry, biomedical engineering and materials science and engineering.
