Microscale Design for Soft and Living Systems
The Muir Lab designs soft and living materials at the microscale. Our work centers on developing hydrogel-based platforms, bioprinting strategies, and biofabrication techniques to create structured, dynamic, and tunable materials that interface with biology. We specialize in using microstructured hydrogels to control the spatial and mechanical properties of materials, enabling precise manipulation of cell-material interactions and engineered biological systems.
Our approach integrates real-time imaging, materials characterization, and computational modeling to advance the design of functional biomaterials for applications in tissue repair, therapeutic delivery, environmental microbiology, and biofabrication. We also embrace a “maker culture” by developing user-friendly, economical biomaterials research tools to expand accessibility and accelerate innovation in the field. Through engineering microscale architectures and dynamic soft materials, we aim to push the boundaries of biomaterials design for biomedical and environmental applications.
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Scroll to learn more about our research directions!
Designing Materials to Study Cell Movement: How do cells, especially microbes, navigate complex biological environments—individually or collectively? By designing structured materials, we investigate microbial movement and its implications for biomedical and environmental challenges, from infection treatment to bioremediation.
Biomaterials under pressure: How do biomechanical forces such as compression, tension, and shear influence the behavior of biomaterial therapeutics, particularly, for musculoskeletal tissue repair? How does this insight improve our design and translation of biomaterials therapies?
Engineering Environments to Study Host-Pathogen Interactions: How do environmental properties—porosity, stiffness, and degradability—shape host-pathogen dynamics? We explore how bacteria interact with bacteriophages in complex environments to uncover principles that influence phage-based engineering strategies across medicine and agriculture.
Microscale living biomaterials: We are designing living biomaterials with microscale features by combining microparticle hydrogels and functional cells for advancing therapies and in vitro cell culture approaches. In particular, we are interested in developing materials design rules for incorporating functional microbes into hydrogel biomaterials for informed, efficient, and scalable living material design.
