Biomaterials for Global Challenges

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At BaldemirLab, we engineer biomaterials to address challenges at the intersection of health, regeneration, food and sustainability. Our research connects polymer and biomaterial design with advanced fabrication strategies and biological evaluation, with the aim of developing functional material systems that respond to real biomedical and societal needs.

Our work spans four interconnected research themes:

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Advanced biomaterials & polymer engineering

We design and investigate polymeric biomaterials with tunable chemical, physical and mechanical properties. A major focus of our research is understanding how molecular architecture, crosslinking, composition and processing influence the behaviour of biomaterial systems. We develop photocrosslinkable polymers, polymer networks and functional composite materials, and establish structure-property relationships that guide their design for biological applications.

 

Our work combines polymer chemistry, material characterisation and biological performance to create materials with properties tailored to their intended function.

 

Current interests include:

Photocrosslinkable polymers · Polymer network design · Structure-property relationships · Functional composites · Biodegradable polymers · Material-cell interactions

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Scaffold fabrication & biofabrication

We develop porous and architecturally controlled biomaterials using fabrication strategies that enable regulation of structure across multiple length scales. A central platform within the laboratory is emulsion templating, particularly the development of PolyHIPE-based materials with highly interconnected porous architectures. We combine this approach with additive manufacturing, hydrogel processing, porogen-based techniques and multilayer fabrication to generate scaffolds with application-specific structural and mechanical properties.

  

Our research increasingly focuses on creating asymmetric, hierarchical and multifunctional material architectures, where different regions of a scaffold are engineered to perform distinct biological or mechanical roles.

  

Our fabrication toolbox includes:

Emulsion templating · PolyHIPEs · Photopolymerisation · 3D printing · Hydrogel engineering · Freeze-drying · Porogen leaching · Multilayer scaffold fabrication

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Regenerative biomaterials & tissue engineering

We engineer biomaterials that interact with cells and tissues to support regeneration, repair and functional tissue organisation. Our research includes biomaterials for bone and dental tissue engineering, guided tissue regeneration and soft-tissue applications, with particular emphasis on scaffold architecture, mechanical behaviour, cell compatibility and tissue-material interactions.

  

Rather than treating a scaffold as a passive support, we design material systems in which surface chemistry, porosity, mechanics, architecture and biological function are considered together.

  

Current projects include photocurable and injectable bone biomaterials, asymmetric barrier membranes for guided bone regeneration, and porous scaffolds designed to support tissue-specific cellular responses.

  

Key themes include:

Bone and dental tissue engineering · Guided tissue regeneration · Soft-tissue engineering · Injectable biomaterials · Breast tissue engineering · Cell-material interactions · Angiogenic response · Translational scaffold design

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Sustainable & edible biomaterials

We are expanding biomaterials engineering beyond conventional biomedical applications towards food, cellular agriculture and sustainable material systems. Our research explores naturally derived and edible polymers as functional matrices for cultivated tissue applications. We investigate how food-compatible biomaterials can provide the structural, mechanical and biological environments required for cell attachment, growth and differentiation while remaining compatible with future food applications.

  

Current work includes pectin- and protein-based edible materials, emulsion-templated edible scaffolds and food-derived matrices for cultivated fat development.

  

Through this research, we aim to translate concepts traditionally used in tissue engineering into new material strategies for cellular agriculture.

  

Current interests include:

Edible biomaterials · Cellular agriculture · Cultivated fat · Food-derived scaffolds · Pectin-based materials · Plant proteins · Sustainable biomaterial design

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Research Platforms

  

We believe that successful biomaterials emerge from the integration of chemistry, architecture, mechanics and biology. Our approach, therefore, begins with the function a material needs to perform and works backwards towards its molecular composition, fabrication method and structural organisation. From polymer networks and porous scaffolds to living cellular systems, we aim to understand how design decisions made at one scale influence biological performance at another.

Design the material. Build the architecture. Understand the biology.

  

Our research is supported by an interdisciplinary experimental platform integrating materials science, engineering and cell biology.

  

​Materials & Fabrication
Polymer synthesis · Photopolymerisation · Emulsion templating · 3D printing · Fused deposition modelling · SLA · Hydrogel processing · Freeze-drying · Porogen leaching · Composite fabrication

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Material Characterisation

Mechanical testing · Interfacial and tensile characterisation · Porosity and pore architecture analysis · Microstructural imaging · Surface morphology · Wettability and surface properties · Swelling behaviour · Degradation and mass-retention studies · Chemical and spectroscopic characterisation · Thermal characterisation · Protein adsorption · Structure-property relationships​

  

Biological Evaluation
Mammalian cell culture · Stem cell studies · Cytocompatibility testing · Cellular infiltration · Differentiation studies · Bioimaging · CAM-based evaluation​​​