Materials and devices implanted inside the body offer a promising strategy for treating diseases and restoring tissue functions. Some persistent challenges for implants include (i) migration, deformation, and fracture of implants by body movements, (ii) pre-mature failure by body fluid corrosion, (iii) the foreign body response (FBR), (iv) mechanical mismatch with tissues, and (v) long-term therapeutic efficacy. We are developing new implants with tissue-mimetic mechanical properties, tailored physical properties, and specific biological functionalities to tackle these challenges. The current projects are the following. 

(1) Bio-functional implants. We develop implants with decoupled surface and bulk properties to enable tissue-mimetic mechanical properties and optimal biological functions. Examples include anti-fibrosis, bioadhesive, and anti-biofouling implants.

(2) Immunomodulatory hydrogel living devices to treat type-1 diabetes. We design hydrogel and hydrogel-elastomer hybrid devices with encapsulated optimal numbers and organizations of living pancreatic islet cells to effectively sense and correct the blood glucose level. The devices themselves are coated with immunomodulatory molecules or drugs to modulate the FBR.

Relevant papers on this topic.

• William Jeang, Matthew Bochenek, Suman Bose, Yichao Zhao, Bryan Wong, Jiawei Yang, Alexis Jiang, Robert Langer, Daniel Anderson. 2024. Silicone cryogel skeletons enhance the survival and mechanical integrity of hydrogel-encapsulated cell therapies. Science Advances.10, eadk5949
• Yang, J., 2022. A polymer brush theory for quantitative prediction of maximum height change between dry and wet states, preprint, https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.06892