Description:

The Department of Pharmacology invites you to a guest speaker lecture presented by Samuel I. Stupp, Ph.D., Board of Trustees Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Chemistry, Medicine, and Biomedical Engineering and Director, Louis A. Simpson and Kimberly K. Querrey Institute for BioNanotechnology in Medicine (SQI), Northwestern University.

Supramolecular assemblies with filamentous architecture found in extracellular matrices and in the cytosol signal cells from their external environment and also mediate from within many of their functions. Biology utilizes for this purpose supramolecular assemblies of protein monomers as well as polysaccharides. These highly dynamic structures are the scaffolds of extracellular biological signals and mediators of fundamental processes such as cell division and migration. This lecture will describe supramolecular biomaterials built from monomers based on peptides that mimic the natural systems and can also integrate other biomolecular structures such as nucleic acids and glycans. The systems to be described have the capacity to signal cells and promote proliferation, migration, and differentiation of stem cells. Their use in vivo has demonstrated their capacity to be highly effective in tissue regeneration, and regenerative medicine models to be described include, spinal fusion, muscle regeneration, cartilage regeneration, peripheral nerve growth, and angiogenesis in peripheral arterial disease.