The Grunlan Group seeks to design novel polymeric biomaterials to improve their performance or function. By tailoring polymer structure at the molecular-level, we are able to alter specific macroscopic material properties and establish useful structure-property relationships. Establishing such predictive relationships between polymer structure, materials properties, and performance in a particular application is critical to develop the next generation of biomaterials.

A principle distinction of our research is the development of inorganic silicon-containing polymers and their combination with organic polymers to obtain "hybrid" materials with unique properties. Our focus on these particular types of materials enables us to achieve distinctive properties that can be readily tailored to obtain a specific property.

We prepare polymeric biomaterials in many different forms: thermoplastic polymers and copolymers, solid coatings, grafted-surfaces, colloidal nanoparticles, elastomers and hydrogels. To do so, we utilize various synthetic, fabrication, and characterization techniques to determine chemical structure and physical properties of these systems.