Matthew L Becker

About

Matthew L Becker is the Hugo L. Blomquist Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Duke University. His research group, the Becker Laboratory for Functional Biomaterials, is a multidisciplinary organic chemistry and biomaterials group working at the interface of chemistry, engineering, and medicine. His team develops families of degradable polymers with highly tunable physical, structural, and biological properties, which are applied to unmet needs in flexible electronics, soft tissue repair, neural, orthopedic, and vascular tissue engineering. Becker's work also involves additive manufacturing and the development of custom inks that enable innovative solutions in women's health, trauma surgery, and drug delivery. His research aims to create materials that address critical challenges in biomedical engineering and regenerative medicine.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Materials science
• Nanotechnology
• History
• Chemistry
• Electrical engineering
• Optoelectronics
• Organic chemistry
• Biomedical engineering
• Engineering

Selected publications

• Fabrication of Biomedical Scaffolds Using Biodegradable Polymers

  Chemical Reviews · 2021 · 339 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Degradable polymers are used widely in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Maturing capabilities in additive manufacturing coupled with advances in orthogonal chemical functionalization methodologies have enabled a rapid evolution of defect-specific form factors and strategies for designing and creating bioactive scaffolds. However, these defect-specific scaffolds, especially when utilizing degradable polymers as the base material, present processing challenges that are distinct and un…

  DOI

• 4D Printing of Resorbable Complex Shape-Memory Poly(propylene fumarate) Star Scaffolds

  ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces · 2020 · 98 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  3D/4D printing is enabling transformative advances in device manufacturing and medicine but remains limited by the lack of printable resorbable materials with advanced properties and functions. Herein, we report the rapid and precise 4D printing of shape-memory scaffolds based on poly(propylene fumarate) (PPF) star polymers. Scaffolds with tunable and distinguishable properties can be produced with identical polymer formulation and stoichiometry. The resulting scaffold glass transition temperatu…

  DOI

• High-speed, scanned laser structuring of multi-layered eco/bioresorbable materials for advanced electronic systems

  Nature Communications · 2022 · 59 citations

  Physically transient forms of electronics enable unique classes of technologies, ranging from biomedical implants that disappear through processes of bioresorption after serving a clinical need to internet-of-things devices that harmlessly dissolve into the environment following a relevant period of use. Here, we develop a sustainable manufacturing pathway, based on ultrafast pulsed laser ablation, that can support high-volume, cost-effective manipulation of a diverse collection of organic and i…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Mechanically interlocked two-dimensional polymers

  Science · 2025-01-16 · 38 citations

  article

  Mechanical bonds arise between molecules that contain interlocked subunits, such as one macrocycle threaded through another. Within polymers, these linkages will confer distinctive mechanical properties and other emergent behaviors, but polymerizations that form mechanical bonds efficiently and use simple monomeric building blocks are rare. In this work, we introduce a solid-state polymerization in which one monomer infiltrates crystals of another to form a macrocycle and mechanical bond at each…

  PublisherDOI

• Synthesis of Cationic Cyclic Oligo(disulfide)s via Cyclo-Depolymerization: A Redox-Responsive and Potent Antibacterial Reagent

  Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2025-02-13 · 17 citations

  articleCorresponding

  Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) and synthetic topologically defined peptide mimics have been developed as alternatives to traditional small-molecule antibiotics. AMP mimetics arising from linear polymers used widely in preclinical studies have shown promise but have limited stability. Oligomers possessing cyclic topology have been proposed to have increased stability but remain understudied due to synthetic challenges and concerns over cytotoxicity. Herein, we present an efficient approach to prep…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• MRI: ACQUISITION OF AN IMAGING SURFACE PLASMON RESONANCE SPECTROMETER FOR QUANTITATIVE ASSESSMENT OF SURFACE ADSORBING SPECIES

  NSF · $300k · 2011–2013

• Surface-Directed Differentiation of Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells on Orthogonal Peptide Concentration Gradient Surfaces

  NSF · $420k · 2011–2014

• NIH Grant R15GM113155

  NIH · $373k · 2018

Frequent coauthors

• Joachim Kohn

  29 shared

• Jukuan Zheng

  Imperial College London

  29 shared

• Jiayi Yu

  South China Agricultural University

  25 shared

• Chrys Wesdemiotis

  University of Akron

  22 shared

• Khaled A. Aamer

  22 shared

• Fei Lin

  20 shared

• Yen‐Hao Hsu

  Duke University

  20 shared

• Laura A. Smith Callahan

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  18 shared

Labs

• M.L. Becker Research GroupPI

  for Functional Biomaterials

Awards & honors

• Fellow (NAI). National Academy of Inventors. 2022
• Fellow. American Chemical Society. 2020
• Carl S. Marvel Award in Creative Polymer Chemistry. Polymer…
• Fellow. American Institute of Medical and Biomedical Enginee…
• Fellow. Royal Society of Chemistry. 2017

Similar researchers at Duke University

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• Shyni Vargheseh-66
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