Research Projects
(1) Novel Biosensing Technologies for Organic Chip Measurement
Organ-on-a-chips are elaborate microengineered physiological systems reconstituting the key features of specific human tissues and organs and their interactions. They have diverse applications, such as developing human in vitro models, enabling the investigation of disease mechanisms, benefiting drug toxicity screening and target discovery. To generate the reliability, we develop novel biosensing technologies to measure the structures and functions of organic chips from the molecular level to the cellular level.
(2) Nanomaterial and Nanostructure for Promoting Ionization
The production of molecular ions is a prerequisite for mass spectrometry, a powerful method for biomolecule analysis. John Fenn and Koichi Tanaka won the 2002 Nobel Prize for Chemistry because they develoed soft desorption ionization methods of electrospray ionization (ESI) and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) respectively for mass spectrometric analyses of biological macromolecules. We develop advanced nanomaterials, such as photonic crystals, for enhancing the laser desorption ionization of molecular ions, and build spray capillary with nanostructure by 3D printing for efficient nano-ESI and nano-DESI.
(3) Ambient Mass/Optical Imaging Instrument
Mass spectrometry imaging is a technique used in mass spectrometry to visualize the spatial distribution of molecules, as biomarkers, metabolites, peptides or proteins by their molecular masses. Due to the remarkable ability of MSI that is easy to find out the localization of biomolecules in tissues without knowing previous information about them, MSI becomes an unique tool for clinical research and pharmacological research. Thus developing MSI system turns into a significant work. However there is a contradiction between high spatial resolution and short processing time per image. Here we develop a mass spectrometry imaging system associating with fluorescence imaging to enhance the spatial resolution and cut down the imaging processing time of large scale samples.
(4) Structural Color Contact Lens
Colored contact lenses are a popular fashion cosmetic product and widely worn by young people. However, common risks of wearing the colored contact lenses are corneal infection, ulcers and other complications. These lenses harm the eyes because the traditional processes of dyeing lenses, such as direct printing of pigments and laser coloring, introduce an unstable and peeled chemical pigment layer that easily penetrates the cornea. Benefiting from the advantages of structural colored materials, we propose the creation of structural colored contact lenses by constructing periodically arranged macropores in a hydrogel matrix.