Molecular Bioengineering
Supramolecular Peptide Hydrogels

Dr. Jennifer Patterson is a Researcher at the Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies on Materials Science (IMDEA Materials), where she heads a research group on Biomaterials and Regenerative Medicine. Originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, she received a B.S.E. in chemical engineering from Princeton University (USA) in 1998 and a Ph.D. in bioengineering from the University of Washington (USA) in 2007. She was first introduced to the concept of self-assembly during her bachelor thesis, which was on the characterization of self-assembled fibrils from combinatorially designed de novo proteins, working under the guidance of Prof. Michael Hecht. Her PhD thesis was on the development of hydrogel- and microsphere-based delivery systems to stimulate oriented bone regeneration, in the laboratory of Prof. Patrick Stayton. Dr. Patterson has worked in both industry and academia, including at Therics, Inc. (USA), which was one of the first companies to develop 3D printing technology for medical applications. During her postdoc in the lab of Prof. Jeffrey Hubbell at EPFL (Switzerland), she gained experience in the molecularly engineered polyethylene glycol (PEG) hydrogels pioneered by that group, including their functionalization with enzymatically cleavable and cell adhesive peptides. At IMDEA, her research group (currently 3 postdocs, 4 PhD students, and 2 research support staff) is focused on the development of novel materials, mostly based on hydrogels, for use as scaffolds in tissue engineering approaches as well as for the creation of 3D tissue models such as spheroids or organ-on-chip devices. Among these hydrogels, she has a keen interest in the development and characterization of supramolecular hydrogels, including those based on self-assembling peptides and synthetic low molecular weight gelators.