Professor Jean Chmielewski

Areas of Research: Biomaterials for Tissue Engineering, Drug Discovery and Delivery

Projects:

• Designer Collagen Materials for Regenerative Medicine: We are developing novel soft materials based on hierarchical assembly of collagen and coiled-coil peptides for use in tissue engineering, stem cell delivery and differentiation, wound healing and drug delivery.
• Blocking Drug Resistance Transporters: Current targets in this area are the human transporter P-glycoprotein, a membrane bound protein that is responsible for multidrug resistance in cancer and limits the penetration of a wide range of therapies into the brain, and PfCRT, a membrane protein of P. falciparum that limits the effectiveness of anti-malaria treatments due to drug efflux from the digestive vacuole of the parasite.
• Dual Agents for Cell Delivery and Antimicrobial Activity: We are designing agents, cationic polyproline helices, with highly efficient mammalian cell penetration that also have potent non-lytic antibacterial activity. We are currently using these agents to target elusive pathogenic bacteria within mammalian cells.