Messersmith Lab @ UCB: A research group studying materials in biological systems to inform the design, synthesis, and application of biologically inspired synthetic materials.

Messersmith Lab at UC Berkeley is a research group in departments of bioengineering & materials science and engineering. The group studies structure-processing-property relationships of materials in biology, and applies bio-inspired materials to solve real-world problems. One of their ongoing projects is on mussel-inspired synthetic adhesives, which is designed by exploiting information gained from their basic studies of mussel adhesion. Their approach employs standard polymer synthetic strategies and to confer the important properties of catechols into these polymers in a straightforward and cost-effective manner. These designs are also applied to solve other real-world problems. These include mussel-inspired underwater sticky notes, mussel-inspired surgical glues, and other numerous applications. For instance, their research on antifouling/antibacterial coatings aims to offer novel solutions to prevent biofouling, the process of depositions of living and nonliving matters on surfaces. Biofouling can cause infections in surgical/medical settings, such as thrombus formation on cardiovascular devices or bacterial biofilm formation on other medical devices. By applying mussel-inspired molecules onto surfaces, those coating can reduce biofouling on surfaces, as shown in the figure. Besides these projects, their website contains more ongoing projects that leverage bioinspired materials for tackling engineering/medical problems, as well as other relevant information.

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