The existing approach to designing synthetic materials that possess a unique combination of biological softness and strength is primarily based on the intuitive mixing (trial-and-error selection) of various polymers, crosslinkers, and solvents. This approach is inefficient, inflexible in applications, and imprecise in property control.
The laboratory is developing a new material design platform based on the architectural programming of their physical properties. This approach uses precisely defined multiplets of independently controlled architectural parameters to encode various mechanical phenotypes without changing the chemical composition or adding a solvent.
Ultimately, this "code-based" design platform will provide the foundation for a material search engine that offers precise recommendations (recipes, methodologies) for creating biocompatible materials with mechanical properties analogous to living tissues. By duplicating biomechanical properties and ensuring reliable performance under extreme conditions, these materials will revolutionize a wide range of applications, including robotics, wearable electronics, biomedical implants, and drug delivery technologies.
Laboratory work is conducted through close collaboration and feedback between theorists, synthetic chemists, and experimental physicists.
The laboratory is developing a new material design platform based on the architectural programming of their physical properties. This approach uses precisely defined multiplets of independently controlled architectural parameters to encode various mechanical phenotypes without changing the chemical composition or adding a solvent.
Ultimately, this "code-based" design platform will provide the foundation for a material search engine that offers precise recommendations (recipes, methodologies) for creating biocompatible materials with mechanical properties analogous to living tissues. By duplicating biomechanical properties and ensuring reliable performance under extreme conditions, these materials will revolutionize a wide range of applications, including robotics, wearable electronics, biomedical implants, and drug delivery technologies.
Laboratory work is conducted through close collaboration and feedback between theorists, synthetic chemists, and experimental physicists.
Laboratory Profile:
Development of polymer networks (elastomers and gels) based on molecular brushes to create materials that precisely replicate the mechanical behavior of biological tissues, ranging from soft (brain) to tough (skin).Research Areas:
- Theoretical modeling of "brush-like" polymer systems aimed at finding universal correlations between network architecture and mechanical properties, such as elastic modulus and maximum extensibility, which are independent of chemical composition.
- Synthesis of polymer brushes with rigid backbones: polyester, polyimide, and polyfluorene, and flexible hydrophobic and hydrophilic side chains: polycaprolactone, poly-tert-butyl methacrylate, polymethacrylic acid, polyoxazolines. Exploring methods for sparse regular cross-linking of these polymers to create new elastomers with unique properties.
- Synthesis of AB and ABA type copolymers (where B is a polymer brush) with significantly different polymer natures for block A and the brush side chains, aimed at forming self-assembling physical networks to produce new elastomers. Development of methods for shaping these materials using 3D printing.
- Analysis of the molecular weight characteristics of these polymers using gel permeation chromatography and study of their behavior in solutions using light scattering methods.
- Production of materials from synthesized polymers and study of their mechanical, thermophysical, and optical properties.
- Search for and optimization of application routes for the resulting materials in the fields of biomedicine, diagnostics, and pharmaceuticals.
Website: https://biomimo.macro.ru/
Contact person: Oleg Vladimirovich Borisov (D.Sc. in Physics and Mathematics), Head of Laboratory, Leading Researcher
Address: 31 Bolshoy Prospekt, Vasilyevsky Island
Phone: (812) 328-68-95
Contact person: Oleg Vladimirovich Borisov (D.Sc. in Physics and Mathematics), Head of Laboratory, Leading Researcher
Address: 31 Bolshoy Prospekt, Vasilyevsky Island
Phone: (812) 328-68-95
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