Research Directions

1. Advanced biomaterials for dental restoratives and orthopedics

         One main goal in this emerging field is to develop novel polymers and their composites for dental and orthopedic applications, which include hard tissue and soft tissue restorations. We expect that the developed biomaterials will have tissue-compatible properties including mechanical, physical and biological properties.

2. Biodegradable polymers for tissue engineering

        The second research target we are currently working on is to develop novel biodegradable polymer and composite systems for tissue engineering, which includes design and formulation of deliverable, in situ curable and hydrolytically degradable polymers as tissue scaffolds for soft and hard tissue regenerations.

3. Functional polymers for improved tissue and organ transplantations

        The third research area we are currently working on is regenerative medicine, specifically in the area of immune protection of cell or organ transplantations. Dr. Xie initiated a strong collaboration with Dr. Pescovitz, Director of Organ Transplant at Indiana University Medical Center on pancreatic islet transplantations. The goal of this research is to engineer tissue compatible polymers to pancreatic islets to completely diminish all the detrimental immune and complement-mediated reactions that may occur during islet allo- or xenotransplantations and to prevent loss of islet mass, which will dramatically impact millions of patients in need of pancreatic islet transplantation.