Mark Tibbitt will head the Macromolecular Engineering Lab

Mark Tibbitt wants to better understand fundamental processes in biology and materials science as well as to engineer next-generation soft materials and medical technologies. Therefore, he integrates in his research concepts and techniques from chemical engineering, polymer chemistry, materials science, and biology to design and assemble soft matter for biomedical applications. The results are being used to address clinical problems in the fields of drug delivery, regenerative medicine, and biomedical diagnostics. Current areas of research interest are, among others, cell mechanotransduction, nanoscale drug delivery systems, 3D bioprinting and the mechanical characterization of soft materials.

Before Mark Tibbitt was appointed Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) of Macromolecular Engineering at ETH Zurich, he had been a post-doctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). During his doctoral studies, Mark Tibbitt worked on the synthesis and mechanical characterisation of polymer hydrogels for mammalian cell culture and regenerative medicine. Since then he has been working on the development and manufacture of polymer materials for the controlled delivery of small molecules and biotherapeutics, including for applications in ophthalmic, cardiac and cancer medicine.

Tibbitt received his B.A. in Integrated Science and Mathematics from Northwestern University in 2007. He completed a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering in 2012 at the University of Colorado Boulder.