City College: L. Gilchrist
Hospital partners: P. Torzilli, Hospital for Special Surgery

Our current research goal is to create novel biomaterials and approach the problem of cartilage repair from the molecular engineering perspective. To simulate the cartilage environment, modular bioactive surfaces are being built from self-assembling proteins and cartilage molecular fragments. Our aim is to harness the self-assembly process used by bacteria to display ligands on the cell surface. The design process is being guided with the combination of molecular modeling and biomolecular spectroscopy, and in particular magnetic resonance studies.

Our biomaterial components are isolated primarily from microorganisms grown in bioreactors, permitting labeling of the materials with NMR-active probe nuclei.