Event
Bioengineering Graduate Student Choice Seminar: Kristi Kiick
Friday, December 4, 2015
9:00 a.m.-10:00 a.m.
Pepco Room (1105), Jeong H. Kim Engineering Building
Alyssa Wolice
awolice@umd.edu
Kristi Kiick
Professor and Deputy Dean of Engineering
Materials Science and Engineering
University of Delaware
Biopolymer Conjugates for Production of Responsive Biomaterials
Macromolecular structures that are capable of selectively and efficiently engaging cellular targets offer important approaches for mediating biological events and in the development of hybrid materials. We have employed a combination of biosynthetic tools, bioconjugation strategies, and biomimetic assembly in the design of multiple types of biopolymer-conjugate-based materials. In one specific area, PEG-biopolymer conjugates have been used in the formation of hydrogels by covalent click-based chemistries that are selectively degradable under pathological conditions. Interactions of various cells with these materials can be modulated on the basis of mechanical and chemical cues. Most recently, we have developed resilin-based hydrogels with controlled properties useful for cardiovascular and vocal fold therapies, as well as collagen-based conjugates with dual thermoresponsiveness. These materials can be designed with microstructural heterogeneity as well as into nanoparticles that could be useful in a variety of drug delivery approaches.
About the Speaker
Kristi Kiick is a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and Deputy Dean of the University of Delaware College of Engineering. She holds a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Delaware and an M.S. in Chemistry (as an NSF Predoctoral Fellow) from the University of Georgia. After working as a research scientist at Kimberly Clark Corporation, she rejoined the academic ranks as a doctoral student and received a Ph.D. in Polymer Science and Engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, after completing her doctoral research as an NDSEG Fellow at the California Institute of Technology. She joined the UD faculty in 2001. Her current research programs are focused on combining biosynthetic techniques, chemical methods, and bioinspired assembly strategies for the production of advanced multifunctional biomaterials. Kiick’s honors have included a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation New Faculty Award, a Beckman Young Investigator Award, an NSF CAREER Award, a DuPont Young Professor Award, and the Delaware Biosciences Academic Research Award. She is also a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and of the American Chemical Society, as well as a Fellow of the American Chemical Society Division of Polymer Chemistry. Kiick has delivered a variety of keynote, plenary, and memorial lectureships, and serves on the advisory boards of multiple international journals and research organizations.
