Current Research
1. Microfluidics
Microfluidic technology can be precise control over fluids in micro/nano scale. Droplet microfluidics is an important branch of microfluidic technology. Droplet microfluidics can continuously generate monodisperse emulsion and multiple emulsion droplets with highly controlled size and shape. Droplet microfluidics can be used for not only drug-loading and drug delivery, but also creating new functional micro/nano materials (such as particles,microfibers, function surface and three-dimensional scaffolds), and developing efficient and accurate-controlled micro/nano biochemical detection and analysis system.
2. Functional Fibers
Fiber-based materials have a wide range of applications in different fields, including sensor, biomaterials, tissue engineering and wearable devices. We develop a variety of fiber fabrication technologies and fabricate functional fibers with different morphologies and functions to meet the requirements of different areas. For example, we use microfluidics to fabricate bioinspired cavity-microfibers and hollow fibers to achieve high-efficient and large-scale water collection and low-cost preparation of artificial blood vessels.
3. Water Collection Engineering
Water shortage has already become one of the most serious problems in the 21st century. Solving technical problem of how to efficiently obtain water is an urgent need. Our group uses advanced materials technology and microfluidic technology to develop spider-silk like fibers and bioinspired surface to collect water from the mist of the atmosphere, realizing high-efficient and large-scale water collection and aiming to alleviate water shortages.
4. Biomaterials
Biomaterials is a multidisciplinary research field, including life science, material science, chemistry and medicine. General biomaterials is including biomedical materials, biomimetic/bioinspired materials and smart materials. Our group is focusing on the development of new type of bioinspired materials, smart materials and medical materials used in engineering applications, 3D cell culture and the diagnosis, treatment, repair or replace of tissue and organs.
5. Vascular Tissue Engineering
Cardiovascular disease is a common disease endangering human health, whose main and auxiliary treatment is vascular transplantation. We develop new fabrication technologies for simple and rapid fabrication of artificial blood vessels. We aim to achieve simplicity, rapidness, accuracy, low cost and multi-diameter of fabrication of artificial blood vessels. Meanwhile,we also develop organ on a chip and vascular networks, as in vitro models, to assist drug development, screening and test, and the construction of in vitro models.
6. Functional Surfaces and Interfaces
Functional surfaces/interfaces are widely used in the fields of energy, construction, vehicle, chemistry, electronics, environment, biomedical engineering, high-end equipment and military equipment. We mainly employ the multidisciplinary technologies and methods of physical, chemical, material and biological surface to explore and reveal the special wettability and its mechanism of function surfaces/interfaces, and research, design and fabricate bionic surfaces and interfaces.
