William C. Miles, Ph.D.

Research Interests:

I am interested in biomimetic approaches to enhance or diminish biomineralization for treatment of bone loss, tooth loss, and other diseases. We hope to develop techniques to accurately measure biomineralization kinetics in vitro to understand how to effectively control the mineralization process. Our ultimate goal is to understand how substrate morphology and composition affects the rate of biomineralization and use that information to generate advanced materials for treatment of disease.

Background:

My doctoral research focused on the development of polymer-magnetite nanoparticle complexes for use in biomedical applications, particularly magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). By altering the way the polymer was anchored to the magnetite surface, we were able to generate stable, well-defined suspensions in physiological analogs. Additionally, a model was adapted to predict the polymer-magnetite complex size in suspension. This allowed for the determination of minute levels of aggregation and helped to explain measured relaxation rates.

Awards/Honors:

• Macromolecular Interfaces with Life Sciences (MILES) IGERT NSF Fellowship (2006-2008)
• Invited Speaker, “Prediction and Control of the Colloidal Stability of Polymer-Stabilized Iron Oxide Nanoparticles in Aqueous Media.” The Adhesion and Sealant Council Fall Convention and Expo (2007).
• Paul E. Torgerson Research Excellence Award, 2nd Place Ph.D. Poster (2009)

Publications:

• W.C. Miles, J.D. Goff, P.P. Huffstetler, C.M. Reinholz, N. Pothayee, B.L. Caba, J.S. Boyd, R.M. Davis, and J.S. Riffle, “Synthesis and Colloidal Properties of Polyether-Magnetite Complexes in Water and Phosphate-Buffered Saline.” Langmuir (2009) 25(2) 803-813.
• W.C. Miles, J.D. Goff, P.P. Huffstetler, O.T. Mefford, J.S. Riffle, and R.M. Davis, “The Design of Well-Defined PDMS-Magnetite Complexes” Polymer(2009) Under Review.
• J.D. Goff, P.P. Huffstetler, W.C. Miles, N. Pothayee, C.M. Reinholz, S. Ball, R.M. Davis, and J.S. Riffle, “Novel Phosphonate-functional Poly(ethylene oxide)-Magnetite Nanoparticles form Stable Colloidal Dispersions in Phosphate Buffered Saline.” Chemistry of Materials(2009) Accepted.
• B.A. Rzigalinski, K. Meehan, R.M. Davis, Y. Xu, W.C. Miles, and C.A. Cohen, ”Radical Nanomedicine.” Nanomedicine (2006) 1(4) 399-412.