Phillip B. Messersmith

Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering
PhD (1992), University of Illinois, Urbana
philm@northwestern.edu


Areas of Interest:

Mussel Adhesive Protein Mimetic Biointerfaces/Biofouling Research
Injectable Biomaterials/Tissue Engineering
Nanoscience/Nanotechnology
Self Assembling Systems
Stem Cell Bioengineering

Phillip Messersmith performs research on biomimetic materials for human tissue repair and regeneration. The portion of his work occurring in IBNAM is focused on islet transplantation and design of bioactive hydrogels for differentiation of progenitor cells into insulin-secreting beta cells. In the islet transplantation work, adhesive hydrogels are being explored for minimally invasive delivery of islets onto highly vascularized tissue surfaces. He is also exploring enzymatic coupling of bioactive molecules onto tissue to enhance the survival of islets during isolation and implantation. The bioactive hydrogel project involves incorporating anti-apoptotic and other bioactive peptide sequences into hydrogels to enhance the survival of cells within hydrogels and to induce differentiation of progenitor cells into insulin-secreting cells.

Messersmith Research Group