Title

Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor

Education

Postdoctoral Fellow, Biomedical Engineering – Boston University, 2005
Ph.D. Chemical Engineering – University of Texas Austin, 2003
B.S. Chemical Engineering – Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1998

Professional Interests

Our research focuses on designing biomaterials for tissue engineering applications. This multidisciplinary area couples engineering, life sciences, and clinical medicine to develop strategies to repair damaged tissues. To do this, we require a detailed understanding of body’s own biomaterials (i.e., the proteins and carbohydrates of the extracellular matrix), the cellular machinery by which the biomaterials are assembled and degraded, and how the dynamic microscale interactions of these components influence tissue physiology.

Currently, we are designing, synthesizing, and characterizing biomaterials created from naturally derived and synthetic biopolymers. We are implementing these novel biomaterials as a platform to gain a more detailed understanding of neural and cancer cell behavior. By correlating the impact of individual substrate properties on cell behavior, we will elucidate key design principles that will aid in the development of improved therapies to treat nerve injury and tumor growth.

Publications

PDFs of these and other articles are available at http://www.jleachlab.org/publications/index.html

Leach JB, XQ Brown, JG Jacot, PA DiMilla, JY Wong. (2007) Neurite outgrowth and branching of PC12 cells on very soft substrates sharply decreases below a threshold of substrate rigidity. Journal of Neural Engineering 4:26-34.

Koester S, JB Leach, B Struth, T Pfohl, JY Wong. (2007) Visualization of type I collagen self-assembly induced by tunable pH gradients. Langmuir 23:357-359.

Leach, JB, JB Wolinsky, P Stone, JY Wong. (2005) Crosslinked alpha-elastin biomaterials: Towards a processable elastin mimetic scaffold. Acta Biomaterialia 1:155-164.

Leach JB, CE Schmidt (2005). Characterization of protein release from photocrosslinkable hyaluronic acid-polyethylene glycol hydrogels. Biomaterials 26:125-135.

Wong JY, JB Leach, XQ Brown (2004). Balance of chemistry, topography, and mechanics at the cell-biomaterial interface: Issues and challenges for assessing the role of substrate mechanics on cell response. Surface Science 570:119-133.

Leach JB, KA Bivens, CN Collins, CE Schmidt (2004). Development of photocrosslinked hyaluronic acid-polyethylene glycol-peptide composite hydrogels for soft tissue engineering. Journal of Biomedical Materials Research 70A:74-82.

Baier Leach J, KA Bivens, CW Patrick, Jr., CE Schmidt (2003). Photocrosslinked hyaluronic acid hydrogels: natural, biodegradable tissue engineering scaffolds. Biotechnology & Bioengineering 82:578-89.

Schmidt CE, J Baier Leach (2003). Neural tissue engineering: strategies for repair and regeneration. Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering 5:293-347.

Schmidt CE, JM Baier (2000). Acellular vascular tissues: natural biomaterials for tissue repair and tissue engineering. Biomaterials 21:2215-31.