Danielle Benoit

• Assistant Professor

  • Biomedical Engineering
  • Chemical Engineering
  • Center for Musculoskeletal Research

Benoit Lab

Research Overview

Our lab works at the interface of medicine and engineering, with an emphasis on precisely controlling biomaterial functionality and architecture to treat diseases, control cell behavior, or answer fundamental biological questions. In particular, we are focusing on two avenues: synthetic hydrogels with tunable degradation and mechanical properties as a synthetic extracellular matrix analogue for the culture and delivery of cells for regenerative medicine approaches and polymers formed using reversible-addition fragmentation chain transfer polymerization (RAFT), a controlled, living polymerization strategy, designed with drug delivery applications in mind. Our overall hypothesis is that by using bottom-up approaches, we can design 'smart' materials with distinct capabilities, such as controlling cell behavior or overcoming delivery barriers.