Please join us for the 2024 Michael Jaharis Symposium, as well as for refreshments in the Hive Annex after the lecture.

"A Molecular Approach to Additive Manufacturing Medical Devices for Use in The Clinic"

ABSTRACT:

The emergence of additive manufacturing has afforded the ability to fabricate intricate, high resolution, and patient-specific polymeric implants. However, the availability of biocompatible resins with tunable resorption profiles remains a significant hurdle to clinical translation. In this presentation, I will outline our strategies for synthesizing highly functional oligomeric resins that can be photochemically printed into a variety of structures possessing unique mechanical, chemical and degradation properties. I will also describe their use in a number of pre-clinical applications.

BIO:

Matthew L. Becker is the Hugo L. Blomquist Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, Mechanical Engineering & Material Science, Biomedical Engineering and Orthopaedic Surgery at Duke University. His multidisciplinary research team is focused on developing bioactive polymers which address unmet medical needs at the interface of chemistry, materials and medicine. He is a Kavli Fellow and a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the American Institute of Medical and Biomedical Engineering and the American Chemical Society. From 2009-2019 he was the W. Gerald Austen Endowed Chair of Polymer Science and Engineering at The University of Akron. He earned a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Washington University in St. Louis (2003) as an NIH Chemistry Biology Interface Training Fellow. From 2003-2005, he was a NRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Polymers Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and remained on the permanent staff until 2009 as a project leader for bioimaging and tissue engineering.