Professor Choi’s lab explores how nanoparticles interact with the living system across the length scales of organs, tissues, cell, and organelles, and designs novel bionanomaterials for treating diseases arisen from various biological locations in vivo. The lab addresses the bottleneck of nanomedicine by characterizing organ-, tissue-, and cellular-level distribution of nanoparticles to gain mechanistic insights into how nanoparticles interact with the biological system for the development of design rules for building nanoparticles that can specifically target defined biological destinations. Professor Choi was a recipient of the Croucher Innovation Award.

The macromolecular crowding technology developed by Dr. Blocki represents a novel and efficient method for the preparation of cell-specific extracellular matrix (ECM). Her CNRM project will utilize this technology to prepare 3D-printed, bio-instructive mesenchymal stem cell-derived ECM-loaded hydrogels with anti-inflammatory, pro- angiogenic and neuro-regenerative properties within a degradable natural hydrogel to regenerate vascularized tissues, particularly in diabetic wounds. This technology has general applicability for other projects in the CNRM.