Faculty: Dr. T. R. Hoare

 

Dr. HoareAssistant Professor
Department of Chemical Engineering

McMaster University
1280 Main Street West, Hamilton
Ontario, Canada  L8S 4L7

office: JHE-A409
email:hoaretr@mcmaster.ca
voice: (905) 525-9140 ext.24701

B.Sc. (Eng), Engineering Chemistry, Queen’s University (2001)
Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, McMaster University (2006)
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Langer Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2006-2008)

Research Interests

The focus of research in our group is the engineering of microparticles and nanoparticles (in particular, gel-based particles) with targeted surface chemistries and physical properties and the subsequent use of these particles in biological and environmental applications. We are particularly interested in investigating nanogels which change their dimensions, their affinity with other chemicals in their environment, or their optical properties upon controlled changes to the gel environment.  Projects in our group are typically interdisciplinary, involving aspects of nanotechnology, interfacial engineering, biomaterials engineering, polymer science, and pharmaceutical science.  Our general strategy is to develop platform material science technologies which can be tuned to generate polymeric materials with a range of compositions and functionalities and then apply these materials in a variety of different applications, often in collaboration with other researchers who are specialists in those fields.
Representative projects currently underway in our lab include:

  1. Controlling nanogel morphology – We are developing new methods to control and characterize the size, internal morphology, and physical properties of gel-based nanoparticles and microparticles.  Our principal objective is to understand the impact of nanogel and microgel morphology on the biodegradability, environmental responsiveness, and application performance of the gels, allowing us to custom-synthesize microgels or nanogels which are optimized for specific applications.  
  2. Biodegradable environmentally-responsive microgels – We are investigating novel strategies for synthesizing biodegradable nanogels and microgels based on synthetic polymers and characterizing the cell and animal responses to these microgels as they degrade.
  3. Injectable composite hydrogels for drug delivery – We are developing biodegradable, microgel-based systems which can be injected as viscous liquids and “set” as a hydrogel internally to achieve environmentally-tunable controlled release of drugs.  A particular interest lies in systems which can be externally triggered via a non-invasive stimulus to release drug at desired intervals.  Such a treatment would be advantageous for “on-demand”, patient-regulated drug release for the treatment of chronic pain or other pulsatile drug delivery challenges (for example, diabetes treatment)
  4. Microgel-biomolecule interactions – We are investigating the interactions of gel nanoparticles with biomolecules (specifically, proteins and nucleic acids) and cells to determine how to promote both strong irreversible and weak reversible binding interactions by tuning the gel morphology and composition.  Potential applications for such technologies include vaccine delivery, chemically-stimulated drug release, “smart” wastewater treatment, pathogen capture and deactivation, and controlled cell differentiation.

Graduate student positions are currently available – please contact Dr. Hoare for more information about current opportunities.

 

Selected Publications

Hoare, T.; Langer, R.; Zurakowski, D.; Kohane, D.S. “Rheological blends for drug delivery. I: Characterization in vitro” Journal of Biomedical Materials Research A, in press.

Hoare, T.; Bellas, E.; Zurakowski, D.; Kohane, D.S. “Rheological blends for drug delivery. II: Prolongation of nerve blockade, biocompatibility, and in vivo-in vitro correlations” Journal of Biomedical Materials Research A, in press.

Hoare, T.; Pelton, R.  “Characterizing Charge and Crosslinker Distributions in Polyelectrolyte Microgels”.  Current Opinion in Colloid and Interface Science, in press.

Hoare, T.R.; Kohane, D.S.  “Hydrogels in Drug Delivery: Progress and Challenges”.  Polymer 2008, 49, 1993-2007.

Hoare, T.; Pelton, R. “Charge-Switching, Amphoteric Glucose-Responsive Microgels with Physiological Swelling Activity”.  Biomacromolecules, 2008, 9, 733-740.

Hoare, T.; Pelton, R. “The Impact of Microgel Morphologies on Functional Microgel-Drug Interactions”.  Langmuir 2008, 24, 1005-1012.

Hoare, T.; Pelton, R. “Functionalized Microgel Swelling: Comparing Theory and Experiment”.   Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 2007 111, 11895-11906.

Hoare, T.; Pelton, R. “Calorimetric Analysis of Thermal Phase Transitions in Functionalized  Microgels”. Journal of Physical Chemistry B 2007, 111, 1334-1342.

Hoare, T.; Pelton, R. “Engineering Glucose Swelling Responses in Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)-Based Microgels”.  Macromolecules 2007, 40, 670-678.

Hoare, T.; McLean, D. “Kinetic Prediction of Functional Group Distributions in Microgels”. Journal of Physical Chemistry B 2006, 110, 20327-20336.

Hoare, T.; McLean, D. “Multi-Component Kinetic Modeling for Controlling Local Compositions in Thermosensitive Polymers”.  Macromolecular Theory and Simulations 2006 15, 619-632.

Hoare, T.; Pelton, R. “Dimensionless Plot Analysis: A New Way to Analyze Functional Group Distributions in Microgels”. Journal of Colloid and Interface Science. 2006, 303, 109-116.

Hoare, T.; Pelton, R. “Titrametric Characterization of pH-Induced Phase Transitions in Functionalized Microgels”. Langmuir 2006, 22, 7342-7350.

Hoare, T.; Pelton, R. “Electrophoresis of Functionalized Microgels: Morphological Insights”.  Polymer 2005, 46, 1139-1150.

Hoare, T.; Pelton, R. “Highly pH and Temperature-Responsive Microgels Functionalized with Vinylacetic Acid”.  Macromolecules 2004, 37, 2544-2550.

Selected Patent Applications

Hoare, T.; Kohane, D.; Fenn, A.; Langer, R. “Externally-Triggered Thermosensitive Membranes”, United States Provisional Patent Application filed July, 2008.

Simons, M.; Hoare, T.; Kohane, D.; Langer, R. “Membrane Permeating Ear Drops and Methods of
Treatment of Ear Diseases Using Same”. U.S. Patent Application No 61/054,339

McLean, D.; Hoare, T.; Jones, K. “Novel Vaccine Adjuvants: Polymer Microgels”.  US Patent Application 61/040,350; Canadian Patent Application 2,627,903, filed March, 2008.

Hoare, T.; Pelton, R. “Glucose-Responsive Microgels”. United States Provisional Patent Application
No. 60/667,114; April 1, 2005