Hai-Quan Mao
Associate Professor

Department of Materials Science and Engineering & Whitaker Biomedical Engineering Institute
Johns Hopkins University
102 Maryland Hall, 3400 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21218
Tel: (410) 516-8792
Fax: (410) 516-5293
Email:

Dr. Hai-Quan Mao received his B.S. and Ph.D. in Polymer Chemistry from Wuhan University in 1988 and 1993, respectively. He then joined the faculty in Department of Chemistry, Wuhan University as a lecturer. He conducted his postdoctoral training at the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine from 1995 to 1998; and joined Johns Hopkins in Singapore as a co-principal investigator from 1998 to 2003. Following that, he joined the faculty at School of Engineering as an assistant professor. He received the Cygnus Award for Outstanding Work in Drug Delivery from the Controlled Release Society in 1997 for his research on gene delivery and received the Capsugel Awards for Outstanding Research in Innovative Aspects of Controlled Drug Release in 1998 and 2001 for his work on DNA vaccine delivery. He was the recipient of the Young Investigator Award at National University of Singapore in 2002. In 2008, he received the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Award, and the Johns Hopkins University Alumni Association Excellence in Teaching Award. He is a Founding Fellow of the American Academy of Nanomedicine since 2006. Dr. Mao also serves as a consultant for Ratner Biomedical, Inc. and Arteriocyte, Inc. He has published more than 65 peer reviewed scientific publications on Nature Medicine, Journal of American Chemical Society, Journal of Controlled Release, Gene Therapy, Journal of Gene Medicine, Molecular Therapy, Biomaterials, etc. in areas of drug and gene delivery, nanomaterials, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.

Dr. Mao’s lab focuses on developing biomaterials systems for neural regeneration and stem cell technologies, and for therapeutic delivery. The first research objective is to engineer artificial matrices that can mimic stem cell microenvironment to support stem cell adhesion, survival and migration. These functional matrices are developed for efficient expansion and directed differentiation of neural stem cells, human embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells. We have also applied these nanofiber matrices and therapeutic delivery strategies to promote the peripheral nerve regeneration. These studies are supported by NSF Career Award, Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund (2007 & 2009), DARPA and NIH. The second research focus of Dr. Mao’s lab is to synthesize novel self-assembled nanoparticles for drug and gene delivery. Functional components have been integrated in the nanoparticle design to enhance the extra- and intra-cellular delivery efficiencies. These nanoparticles are developed for liver-targeted gene delivery in treating a wide range of liver-specific and systemic diseases. These studies are supported by NIH (NIDDK and NIGMS).