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Welcome to the IBMM/PHBM website

The Department of Polymers for Health and Biomaterials (PHBM) of IBMM (UM, CNRS UMR 5247, ENSCM) is a multidisciplinary research group dedicated to polymers related to biomedical applications. PHBM, initially known as the Department of Artificial Biopolymers (CRBA), was founded in the 80’s and pursues since then its main objectives of design, synthesize, characterization, and processing of polymers to meet the requirements of therapeutic applications. PHBM is recognized worldwide for its expertise in degradable polymers and polymeric biomaterials for health applications. In this frame, PHBM has always been headed by directors at the edge of the polymer and biomedical sciences including precursors of the domain Prof. Michel Vert and Prof. Jean Coudane, and is currently headed by Prof. Xavier Garric.

The main topics developed at PHBM are Advanced Polymeric Biomaterials, Polymers for Tissue Engineering & Medical Devices, Polymers for Drug Delivery and Polymers for Diagnostic. More details on our activities can be found in the research and publications pages.

Besides fundamental research, PHBM is highly involved in valorization and transfer activities through collaborations with clinicians, industrial partners but also through the creation of spin-off companies and belongs to Institut Carnot Chimie Balard Cirimat. The multiand interdisciplinary integrated research environment found at PHBM offers great opportunities to find practical solutions to health issues and translate them into the society for people.  

Our research is focused on

Advanced polymeric biomaterials

We aim to synthesize polymers, polymer hybrids and polymer composites that exhibit original properties that meet the requirement of advanced biomedical applications. In this frame we develop chemical strategies that are applied to polymer surfaces to yield bioactive surfaces, to polymer interfaces to yield hybrid biomaterials and composites. We also synthesize novel degradable (co)polymers that exhibit properties of interest for the design of medical devices and scaffolds including elastomers or stimuli-responsive biomaterials.

Medical devices & tissue engineering

We research custom made degradable (co)polymers that fulfill the needs for specific temporary medical devices or scaffolds for tissue engineering. For this, we combine our polymer synthesis skills with processing techniques, like 3D-printing technologies or electrospinning, and biological studies. Plain polymeric matrices, porous biomaterials, fibrous biomaterials and combination thereof are investigated.

Drug delivery

the aim of this research is to provide polymeric systems that address the challenges of drug formulation: high loadings, reduced side effects, controlled release, stimuli-responsive release, increased circulation times, localization, vectorization, targeting etc. Our research is driven by innovation while keeping regulatory aspects in mind. In this topic, we develop novel degradable (co)polymers for self-assemblies including micelles, nanoparticles & microparticles, gels, coatings.

Polymer and diagnostics

We develop novel biostable or degradable polymers of interest for diagnostic and medical imaging. Such polymers are used either as macromolecular contrast agents, or as macromolecular tagging agents. Among others, it includes fluorescent polymers, MRI-visible polymers, X-ray visible polymers and polymer bioconjugates.

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