Dr. Donghui Zhu
SUNY Empire Innovation Professor
Biomedical Engineering (primary) |Neuroscience
College of Engineering & Applied Sciences | Renaissance School of Medicine
Stony Brook University
ZINC
Abstract: Zinc (Zn) is well known as an essential supplemental element for health, but it’s less known that Zn metal could be a promising bioresorbable medical implant/device. Innovations in metallic biomaterials have attracted remarkable attention for their potentials as orthopedic implants, cardiovascular interventional devices, and tissue engineering scaffolds, thanks to their high strength and toughness compared with polymers and ceramics. Traditional metallic biomaterials with high corrosion resistance, such as titanium alloys, stainless steels, and cobalt-chromium are generally permanent implants, and may cause chronic deleterious effects or impede growth in young patients. Thus, a second operation may be necessary to extract the implant, resulting in additional injury and expense. Biodegradable metals (e.g., Mg, Zn, Fe) are an alternative approach to the traditional paradigm of corrosion resistant metals. They can corrode gradually while maintaining mechanical integrity during the critical tissue healing phase, and fully dissolve upon fulfilling their mission. Lately, our research focuses on the emerging Zn-based biomaterials as innovative bioresorbable medical implants and devices, typically for stent, wound closure, and orthopedic applications.
Biography: Donghui (Don) Zhu is the SUNY Empire Innovation Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Institute for Engineering-Driven Medicine, and Neuroscience Graduate Program at SUNY - Stony Brook University. Dr. Zhu earned his bachelor’s degree at East China University of Technology and Science, and doctorate in Bioengineering at University of Missouri-Columbia. His Ph.D. work focused on neuro-engineering for the treatment of neurovascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Following his Ph.D., Dr. Zhu was trained at the University of Rochester medical center in regenerative medicine for vascular applications. He then became an Assistant Professor in 2010 where his research focused on novel biodegradable metallic materials for tissue engineering and regeneration. Dr. Zhu moved to Texas in 2016 as an Associate Professor to continue his research in innovative biomaterials and regenerative medicine. In fall 2019, he was recruited to Stony Brook, and currently he has a research interest in biomaterials, cardiovascular diseases, musculoskeletal disorders, as well as aging/neuroscience. He has been awarded more than $10 million total extramural research funding and authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications. He is an elected Fellow of American Heart Association (AHA) and American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). Dr. Zhu also serves as editor or editorial board member of many scientific journals as well as numerous grant review panels including NIH, NSF, FDA, and NASA.