WW-Colloquium: Prof. Dr. Mani Diba, From molecular interactions to bioengineered platforms

Prof. Dr. Mani Diba
Department of Dentistry-Regenerative Biomaterials, Radboud Institute for Medical Innovation, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Biomaterial Design Across Scales: From Molecular Interactions to Bioengineered Platforms

Biomedical applications such as regenerative medicine and in vitro modeling require materials that recapitulate key features of the extracellular matrix in living tissues. Hydrogels have emerged as versatile biomaterials to address this need, as they can be engineered across multiple length scales to reproduce structural and functional aspects of native tissue environments. Bottom-up design strategies, spanning supramolecular to particle-based assemblies, provide precise control over material properties and enable the development of hydrogels with tunable mechanical behavior and biological functionality.
In this talk, I will present our work on hydrogel design across length scales, from molecular interactions to network-level properties and cellular responses. I will discuss how these properties influence biological outcomes such as cell adhesion, collective cell behavior, and biomimetic mineralization. Building on these insights, I will highlight emerging challenges in evaluating and applying advanced biomaterials, as conventional characterization methods and experimental platforms are often designed around specific material constraints, limiting their ability to fully leverage the broader design space of these systems. I will discuss recent approaches to address these limitations, including methods to quantify material processability and platforms that enable the integration of complex 3D biological environments.
Together, this talk highlights the need to move beyond isolated material or system design toward an integrated perspective, in which biomaterials and bioengineered platforms are developed in parallel to enable synergistic advances that lead to more predictive and functionally relevant biomedical systems.