Our research philosophy:
The central paradigm of our research is using interdisciplinary approaches in engineering, chemistry, biology, materials, physics, mathematics, and artificial intelligence to manipulate biological world.
The main focus lies on developing synthetic biology and other cutting-edge technologies to engineer biological macromolecules and networks coupled with non-biological components for addressing most daunting challenges in human health and environment.
Ongoing research
Hey, Future! We are ready.
Cell-free Platform
Develop cell-free synthetic biology as an enabling technology by expanding the genetic code, controlling the transcription/translation, and diversifying post-translational modifications.
XNA Synthesis
Design XNAs (DNAs and RNAs) with unnatural modifications and novel structures and produce them at low cost, for versatile biopharmaceutical applications.
Molecular Machinery
Advance the “protein engineering” technology by integrating chassis platforms with computational tools to make difficult-to-express proteins and novel biomacromolecules.
Carbon Biocatalysis
Convert CO2 to high-value fine chemical products by natural light-driven biocatalysis to achieve national carbon neutrality goal.
Artificial Cell
Assemble an artificial cell for understanding basic life and for employing a new biosynthesis philosophy to overcome problems in living cells.
Swarm Robotics
Make incredibly tiny “micro/nano robots” that smartly navigate under their own or external power to a specific target by collective intelligence.
State-of-the-art Biosensor
Construct artificial high-resolution sensory system for environmental, industrial, medical, and AI applications.
Next-generation Materials
Engineer materials with unprecedented structures and functions by predictive sequence-structure-property design.
Brain Science
Decode how human brain works, manipulate non-biological world by our mind, and evolve revolutionary robot brains.
Past research
Dear Past, thanks for all the lessons.
Universal Vaccine
The rapid dissemination of the 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza virus emphasizes the need for universal influenza vaccines which would broadly protect against multiple mutated strains. The discovery of neutralizing antibodies that block influenza infection by binding to the hemagglutinin (HA) stem domain raised the hope for broadly protective vaccines. These could avoid the need for annual vaccinations and reduce pandemic threats, and the stem subdomain of the trimeric HA ectodomain would be an ideal antigen.
Virus engineering
Virus-like particles (VLPs) are probably the most precisely defined and therefore potentially the most useful complex nanometer-scale scaffolds. They have been extensively explored as vehicles for many applications in biotechnology (e.g., vaccines, drug delivery, imaging agents, biocatalysts). However, particle instability, antigen fusion limitations, and intrinsic immunogenicity greatly limit their development. Amino acid sequence plasticity relative to subunit expression and particle assembly has not been explored.
Immunostimulant
Flagellin, a principal component of bacterial flagella, stimulates host defense in a variety of organisms, including mammals, insects, and plants. As a natural agonist of human toll-like receptor 5 (TLR5), flagellin activates the innate immune response, which is considered important for priming and regulating the adaptive immune response. Over the past several years, a strong interest has emerged in developing flagellin as an adjuvant for use in human vaccines to stimulate humoral and cell-mediated immune responses.
Cancer therapy
Especially, biomedicine could benefit from nanotechnology, due to its potent applications for cancer imaging and therapy. Two emerging platforms have shown promise, including magnetic nanoparticle and ultrasound-activated nanoparticle. With specific relevance to cancer diagnosis and therapy, magnetic or ultrasound-activated nanoparticle-based treatment represents an important alternative to conventional chemotherapy, radiation, or surgery.
Biohydrogen
Hydrogen (H2) is an ideal and clean energy carrier for the future with many environmental and economic benefits. Among different ways of hydrogen production, biological hydrogen production by dark fermentation has been considered to be the most practical because of low energy requirement, high hydrogen production rate, wide substrate range (e.g., lignocellulosic biomass and wastewater), and simple reactor technology. However, current approaches now have run into a bottleneck that makes the hydrogen productivity hard to be further improved.
Natural pigment
In the food, cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries, due to serious environment and safety problems caused by many artificial synthetic pigments, research has focused on processes for the production of safe and natural pigments from natural resources. Natural pigments can be obtained from ores, insects, plants, and microorganisms. Red, yellow and blue are basic pigments. Most research has focused on the yellow and red pigment production. However, study of the blue pigment is limited, probably because not many organisms are capable of producing blue pigments.
Biohythane
Biomass-based biorefinery will be a platform for producing different biofuels from renewable biological feedstocks. As gas biofuels, hydrogen and methane are two important energy carriers, which can be produced by anaerobic fermentation from various organic wastes. Because hydrogen fermentation from organic substrates is incomplete, the integration of hydrogen with methane fermentation will benefit the total energy recovery from the renewable biomass. Moreover, compared with ethanol or other liquid biofuels, hydrogen and methane are easily separated from liquid phase, which can contribute to the reduction of the process costs.
Sugar & Bioethanol
About 100 billion metric tons of chitin are produced annually in the ocean waters, 109 tons from copepods alone, the most abundant animals on earth. The ecological significance of chitin degradation has been recognized for over a century. The carbon and nitrogen cycles would cease if this highly insoluble polysaccharide was not returned to the ecosystem in biologically useful form. The commercial significance of chitin breakdown has also been recognized in the context of production of bioavailable sugars and in medicine for the treatment of arthritis, and other joint problems, such as production of ethanol.
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