Tuning Drug Release from Microgel-Hydrogel Nanocomposites
Facilitating long-term release of small water-soluble drugs by making "plum-pudding" hydrogel-microgel composites
Injectable, Degradable Thermoresponsive Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) Hydrogels
Making degradable and covalently in situ gelling analogues of thermoresponsive hydrogels for potential translation to the clinic
Control over Functional Group Distributions in Thermoresponsive Microgels
Learning how to engineer the morphologies of thermoresponsive microgels to tailor application properties
Injectable Polymer Hydrogels with Modular Properties
Controlling the properties of hydrogels over a broad range by simple mixing of a small number of precursor polymers - making hydrogel optimization easier.
Injectable Superparamagnetic Hydrogels
Using magnetic nanoparticle-impregnated or cross-linked hydrogels to facilitate on-demand drug release or cell responses in response to external magnetic fields
Cyclodextrin-Crosslinked Injectable Hydrogels
Using a hydrophilic delivery vehicle to delivery hydrophobic drugs
Making Better Paper-Based Biosensors
Using a simple dip coating process to passivate paper against non-specific protein adsorption, a key barrier to fast and high sensitivity biosensing
Engineering Smart Hydrogel Morphologies
Using smart polymers with different transition temperatures to design injectable hydrogels with well-defined nanostructures
Delivering Drugs Across the Blood-Brain Barrier
Using nanoparticles to deliver anti-psychotic drugs to their targets in the brain via targeted intranasal administration
Making Injectable Protein-Repellent Hydrogels
Using hydrazide-aldehyde chemistry to make highly tunable mimics of conventional poly(ethylene glycol)-based hydrogels with low protein adsorption and inflammatory responses
Accelerated Design of Smart Materials
Using statistical methods to design smart polymers with targeted properties using a minimum number of experiments
Smart Hydrogel Physics
Understanding the fundamentals of smart hydrogel and microgel phase transitions
Self-Assembled Degradable Smart Microgels
Fabricating degradable, monodisperse, covalently cross-linked smart microgels within minutes from well-defined precursor polymers
Improving Artificial Tear Formulations
Developing shear-responsive hydrogels with enhanced comfort and residence time in the eye for drug delivery and dry eye therapy
Electrospinning Hydrogel Nanofibrous Networks
An all-aqueous method to directly make degradable hydrogel nanofibrous networks with fast swelling kinetics and cytocompatible properties

Welcome! The Hoare lab works at the interface of polymer science, physical chemistry, and biology, aiming to design novel materials with “smart” properties precisely tuned to the environment and application in which the material is to be used. Our main expertise lies in the rational design of “smart” hydrogel-based materials on different length scales (i.e. bulk hydrogels, microgels, and nanogels) based on a fundamental understanding of the structure-property relationships in such materials. To achieve this understanding, we apply both the analytical tools of physical chemistry and the mathematical modeling tools of chemical engineering to predict microstructures prior to synthesis and then characterize (and optimize) the realized microstructures for specific applications. While most of our target applications lie within biomedical engineering (drug delivery, cell encapsulation, biomedical devices, biosensors, and tissue engineering), we also apply our engineered hydrogels in food, nutriceutical delivery, agricultural, and environmental applications.

Lab News

  • Our recent work from our collaborative project with Ceapro in making nanostructured hydrogels and using such gels as negative templating materials will be featured at CSChE 2017 - get a preview on our poster page.

    Mon, 2017-10-23
  • Check out some of our newest materials for nanoparticle-based drug delivery at CRS 2017 in Boston - you can preview our posters here.

    Sun, 2017-07-16

Dr. Hoare discusses his research on smart materials upon receiving designation as a McMaster University Scholar

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