Li-Hsin Han
Drexel University, PA·Biomedical Engineering
Knee cartilage heals poorly once damaged. Current repair methods often fail to bond with the surrounding cartilage or give cells a poor environment to grow in.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Materials Science
Engineering
- Topics
cartilage repair
tissue engineering
regenerative medicine
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Nov 2026
What they work on
- Assess the translation and commercial potential of injectable, light-crosslinkable collagen microribbon scaffolds for knee cartilage repair through I-Corps experiential learning and first-hand study of the industry ecosystem.
- Develop collagen microribbons about 0.01 mm wide that, once mixed with chondrocytes (cartilage-forming cells) and crosslinked with blue light, form a porous scaffold that encapsulates the cells.
- Use tunable ribbon size to optimize scaffold pore structure and regulate chondrocyte shape and movement, promoting three-dimensional cartilage growth.
- Evaluate how well injected microribbon scaffolds fill irregular defects and integrate with host cartilage, building on in vitro and explant tests and ongoing horse studies.
More about the research
Patients face long rehabilitation, failed grafts, repeat surgeries, time off work and high costs. This project tests the commercial potential of an injectable material that could fill cartilage defects of any shape and then harden into a scaffold that supports new cartilage growth.
Why it matters
Many patients with knee cartilage damage face failed grafts, repeat surgeries and long recoveries. An injectable, light-hardened collagen scaffold that fits any defect shape and bonds with existing cartilage could lead to less invasive, more durable repairs. That could shorten time away from work and lower treatment costs for patients and health systems.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Anuradha Subramanian
University of Alabama in Huntsville, AL·Biomedical Engineering
Demonstrate whether continuous low-intensity ultrasound (cLIUS) drives mesenchymal stromal cells to form cartilage even in a pro-inflammatory environment, using RNA sequencing to profile the transcriptome and identify the pathways involved.
Mark Grimes
University of Montana, MT·Biomedical Engineering
Test whether seeding human neural crest stem cells in 3D hydrogel scaffolds with extracellular matrix components identified in organoids makes craniofacial cartilage faster and more reproducibly than self-organizing organoids.
Daniel Engebretson
University of South Dakota, SD·Biomedical Engineering
Assess the translation potential of a drug-coated angioplasty balloon for peripheral and cerebrovascular artery disease through first-hand interviews and investigation of the medical device industry in the I-Corps program.
The school
Drexel University: 11 labs on PI Pages, $170M a year on research, 282 research doctorates a year.
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