Mock Dalton Lab People

Originally a materials scientist, Paul Dalton has attained interdisciplinary experience in diverse aspects of advanced biomaterials and clinical device fabrication. He received his PhD from Curtin University in Perth, Australia, where he was part of a Lions Eye Institute team taking an artificial cornea from concept to the clinic. His first post-doc was at the University of Toronto, Canada, with Molly Shoichet developing hydrogels for nerve regeneration, while his second was conducted at Aachen University, Germany, with Martin Möller, applying nanotechnology to life science applications. Each position added a discipline to a materials science foundation, and each addressed the same underlying problem of how a synthetic material behaves once it is placed inside the body.

Later, as an independent research fellow at the University of Southampton in England, Paul investigated neuroinflammatory profiles of hydrogel scaffolds implanted in the spinal cord. Such implants are read by the immune system as much as by the tissue they are intended to repair, and that response often determines whether a device succeeds.

Between 2009 and 2011 he split his time between Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China and Queensland University of Technology in Australia to develop a new high resolution 3D printing technology, called melt electrowriting (MEW). In MEW, an electric field draws molten polymer into a fiber a few micrometers in diameter, which is then placed exactly where it is required, layer upon layer. The technique combines the fine fibers of electrospinning with the placement accuracy of 3D printing, producing ordered structures at a scale that individual cells recognize and respond to.

As the first Professor in Germany in Biofabrication, he established the first MEW printer in Europe and continued to pioneer the technique. Now at the Knight Campus at the University of Oregon, his experienced team will take MEW to another level of capability and control.