Jabbari’s group research interests are in the areas of tissue engineering, biomaterials, and drug delivery. Tissue regeneration and maintenance is a complex process involving the interactions of cells with growth and differentiation factors, cytokines, and extracellular components. These guiding signals originate from the interactions of cells with bioactive peptide domains attached to the collagenous network or the non-collagenous soluble factors of the extracellular matrix. Continued progress in tissue engineering depends on our ability to develop novel materials and peptide/protein delivery systems that can mimic the signaling factors involved in the regeneration cascade of chemotaxis, cell migration, matrix degradation, cell homing, extracellular matrix formation and remodeling. These structures seeded with pluripotent stem cells allow us to elucidate the fundamental relationship between the material structure and cell morphogenesis and expression. Such understanding is critical for the development of tissue-engineered constructs to treat a variety of diseases including musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, and neural disorders.

Active projects in Jabbari’s group include biologically inspired nanocomposites for bone regeneration, targeted tumor delivery with peptidomimetic self-assembled nanoparticles, stem cells morphogenesis on biomimetic substrates, and fabrication of bioresorbable scaffolds with well-defined pore geometry by rapid-prototyping.