Tobin Brown graduated in 2018 with his PhD in chemical engineering after studying hydrogels with the Anseth Research Group. He found work at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder after graduation using atomic force microscopy to study polymeric materials. We asked him about his time at the College of Engineering and Applied Science, where he hopes his career will be in the future and what advice he has for students in the department.
Question: How did you decide on CU Boulder to continue your education?
Answer: CU offered a great mix for me. The Chemical and Biological Engineering Department has excellent research opportunities, and I was especially drawn by the focus on interdisciplinary research here, such as that done by my PhD adviser (Distinguished Professor) Kristi Anseth.
There is also a wonderful collaborative environment, and I was able — and encouraged — to participate in a wide range of collaborations across the ChBE department, the BioFrontiers Institute and the Biophysics Program. I also spent six months as a visiting researcher with Professor Matthias Lutolf in Lausanne, Switzerland. The research abilities and scientific communication skills that I developed prepared me for my current position at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder.
Q: What did you learn on your semester abroad that you brought back to campus?
A: In Switzerland, I learned the theory and practice of working with a cutting-edge cell culture platform known as an organoid. Organoids are self-organizing collections of cells that can be grown in the lab to study organ development and function. I literally brought this back with me as frozen samples, and I continued these experiments in Boulder. Separately, I learned that a meal can be almost entirely cheese.
Q: What was it like working in the Anseth Research Group?
A: As an adviser, Kristi encourages her students to think about big problems, and she provides the knowledge and support to go after them. She is also a constant advocate but leaves enough room to allow students to grow into independent researchers. I couldn’t have asked for a better mentor.
Q: What area is your PhD in? What did you study?
A: I studied a type of biomaterial called hydrogels. These materials replicate many aspects of soft tissues and can be used as scaffolds to grow and study cells in 3D outside the body. My research showed that we could use insights from chemistry and materials science to create biomaterials with new properties that allow us to glean information about how living cells interact with native and artificial matrices. Preserving these interactions in many cases is crucial to the proper function of cells, allowing us to study disease progression and tissue development in a controlled setting. Researchers are also using these materials to create functional tissues in the lab, which one day may be a viable source for transplants into human patients.
Q: Why is creating organs and tissue an important area of research?
A: Organ dysfunction or failure can happen for many reasons — injury, disease, cancer or aging — and lead to serious medical conditions or death. Organ donation is one solution, however, there is a chronic lack of suitable tissue from donors, and there is also the risk of transplant rejection.
One of the ultimate goals of regenerative medicine is to replace damaged or defective tissues with ones grown in the laboratory. Such tissues could also be used as a more accurate model to help in the discovery of new drugs and the testing of these in a patient-specific manner.
Q: What kind of work will you be doing with NIST and what are your goals moving forward?
A: At NIST, I will be using a technique called atomic force microscopy to take a closer look at the mechanical properties of polymeric materials and how we can apply these insights to additive manufacturing (3D printing) technologies. Going forward, I would like to have a career in materials research, whether that comes in an academic, industrial or national lab setting. So far, my brief tenure at NIST has been terrific.
Q: What advice do you have to chemical and biological engineering students working in research right now?
A: Pursue interactions with colleagues outside of your normal cohort; you never know which conversation might spark a great collaboration — and a little perspective always helps.