Engineering of composite scaffolds based on bioinspired polymers

Tissue engineering has revolutionized medicine by combining principles of biology, materials science, and engineering to create functional tissue constructs for repairing or replacing damaged organs. One key contribution lies in its potential to address the critical shortage of donor organs: laboratory-grown tissues offer safer, personalized alternatives with reduced immunogenicity. Engineered scaffolds infused with cells and growth factors promote tissue regeneration, enabling enhanced wound healing and bone or cartilage reconstruction. Additionally, tissue-engineered models serve as physiologically relevant platforms for drug discovery, toxicity screening, and disease modeling, reducing reliance on animal testing. Advances in biomaterials have improved scaffold biocompatibility and degradation profiles, ensuring optimized cell integration and tissue formation. Developing biomaterials as scaffolds for tissue engineering remains challenging due to the need for precise mimicry of the complex native environment. Controlling the biomaterial’s mechanical and chemical properties is essential for maintaining cellular viability and function. The scaffold must be sufficiently robust to support cell adhesion and tissue formation, yet flexible enough to allow dynamic remodeling. Achieving an optimal degradation rate is critical: the scaffold should gradually disappear as new tissue grows but must remain stable until the regenerating tissue can bear load. Additionally, ensuring appropriate biochemical cues is paramount, including the presentation of growth factors, adhesion sites, and other signaling molecules to guide cell behavior. Achieving adequate porosity and interconnected architecture is crucial to facilitate nutrient and waste transport, as well as to allow for homogeneous cell infiltration. Fifth, preventing adverse immune responses and infection requires that the scaffold be biocompatible and, ideally, immunomodulatory. Solving these challenges is essential for creating scaffolds that accurately replicate the functionality and regenerative potential of the native extracellular matrix (ECM).

This project will leverage of the laboratory expertise in the engineering of bioinspired polymers to create multi-component biopolymeric scaffolds suitable for tissue engineering applications. The approach will consist in replicating the fibrillar nature of the ECM using biosourced fibrillar materials such as cellulose nanofibrils. The control of the interactions between the fibrils constituting the porous matrix will be achieved using engineered polymers mimicking scaffold proteins known as aggrecans. Finally, adaptor proteins will be engineered to immobilize and release growth factors and adhesion cues in the matrix in a controlled manner. These materials will be formulated to obtain a composite scaffold suitable for 3D bioprinting and will be tested in different biorelevant context. One will be the production of 3D spheroids made of cancer cells to perform high throughput screening of novel chemotherapeutic agents, and a second will be to test the material for engineering microvascularized organ-on-chips also for drug screening.

The candidate will have to synthesize the polymers necessary for the creation of the scaffold and to evaluate their performances using rheological measurements, biocompatibility assays and cell proliferation assays. The candidate will collaborate with researchers with expertise in bioprinting and drug screening to further demonstrate the feasibility of the overall approach.

University of Montreal’s main campus is located at the heart of Montreal city, the most vibrant city for pursuing graduate studies in North America. Recent surveys have placed Montreal as the best place to study in the world and University of Montreal as one of the best universities of the world. Pr Banquy laboratory is located in this unique environment and offers world class research facilities to students willing to pursue their career in materials engineering.

Site web : http://xbanquy.wix.com/labo-banquy-lab

The applicant must be highly motivated by research and engineering.

 Desired qualities are:

• Experience in nanotechnologies/biotechnologies/nanomaterials characterization is recommended
• High motivation to carry out a multidisciplinary research project at the interface of bioengineering and physics
• Strong appetite for experimentation
• Proficiency in spoken and written English
• Team spirit
• Scientific curiosity

The candidate must have academic training in one of the following fields: nanomedicine, colloidal physics, biotechnology or biomedical engineering. Experience in microsystems design or microfabrication is welcome but not mandatory.