Prof. Christopher Bettinger is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering and Biomedical Engineering. Prof. Bettinger received an S.B. in Chemical Engineering in 2003, an M.Eng. in Biomedical Engineering in 2004, and a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering in 2008 as a Charles Stark Draper Fellow, all from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He completed his post-doctoral fellowship at Stanford University in the Department of Chemical Engineering as an NIH Ruth Kirschstein Fellow in 2010. He has received many honors including the MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering Award for “Outstanding PhD Thesis”, the ACS AkzoNobel Award for Polymer Chemistry, and the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Society Young Investigator Award.
Laboratory for Therapeutic Biodegradable Microsystems is broadly interested in the development of biomaterials-based MEMS for use in a wide range of biomedical applications including regenerative medicine, neural interfaces, and drug delivery. They use interdisciplinary strategies to develop next-generation medical implants that combine extraordinary properties of biodegradability and biocompatibility with unique mechanical properties and electronic functionality.
The laboratory is currently focused on several specific thrusts including BioMEMS for tissue regeneration, biodegradable electronic devices, biomimetic tissue-device interfaces, non-conventional microfabrication of biomaterials, rational biomaterials synthesis, and quantitative elucidation of biodegradation phenomena.