Griffin, Donald Richieri
Primary Appointment
Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering
Education
- PhD, Biomedical Engineering, UCLA
Contact Information
Email: dg2gf@Virginia.EDU
Website: https://www.thegriffinlab.com/
Research Disciplines
Biomedical Engineering, Biotechnology, Materials Science, Translational Science
Research Interests
Biomedical Engineering
Research Description
Tissues and organs often fail to regenerate after significant damage, which results in a loss of normal function. For example, the formation of scar tissue to skin or muscle following injury can lead to discomfort, pain, and loss of mobility. Our lab engineers biomaterials to work with the surrounding tissue as regenerative interventions to improve clinical outcomes. We believe in making clinical solutions that are accessible to as many patients as possible by working with raw materials that can be inexpensively sourced and avoiding designs that rely on delivery of complex biologicals (e.g., growth factors) that would drive up pricing.
We engineer our biomaterials primarily by focusing on two interactions between our biomaterials and surrounding tissues: immunomodulation and accelerated material-tissue integration. For our purposes, immunomodulation is achieved by convincing the immune system that an injury is less severe than it is, thus lowering local inflammation, limiting fibrosis (i.e., scar formation), and promoting regeneration. To promote material-tissue integration, we create non-uniform materials that rearrange the body’s own biological signals to direct cell movement via a naturally occurring process known as chemotaxis.
Currently, our lab is designing materials to address multiple clinical problems, including diabetic skin ulcers, vocal cord reconstruction, post-intubation esophageal injury, skeletal muscle damage, cartilage repair, and type-1 diabetes.