CBE Colloquia - Interface Biology with Soft Functional Materials
Supporting the below United Nations Sustainable Development Goals:支持以下聯合國可持續發展目標：支持以下联合国可持续发展目标：
Non-invasive medicine relies on advances in localized delivery and the activation of chemical reactions deep within the body - challenges that remain difficult to overcome. In this talk, I will cover how soft materials with energy transduction capabilities can address these challenges. In the first part, I will showcase our efforts in developing soft materials that facilitate mechanochemistry, a chemical process initiated by mechanical stress, with biocompatible focused ultrasound assisted by acoustically active proteins. To address the challenges of targeted delivery within the body, in the second part of the talk, I will discuss the development of cell-mimicking miniaturized soft actuators based on molecularly anisotropic polymer networks made by liquid crystalline elastomers (LCEs) with the goal to achieve untethered microrobots to navigate inside body for localized payload delivery.
Yuxing Yao is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at HKUST. He earned his B.S. in chemistry from Tsinghua University under the supervision of Prof. Xi Zhang, where he worked on small-molecule self-assembly for functional materials. He then pursued a PhD in chemistry at Harvard University under the guidance of Prof. Joanna Aizenberg, focusing on the development of biomimetic microscopic soft actuators based on liquid crystalline elastomers. Following his PhD, Yuxing conducted postdoctoral research at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech)with Prof. Mikhail Shapiro, exploring non-invasive medicine by using ultrasound-responsive biomolecular systems. Now, his research integrates soft functional materials, synthetic biology and ultrasound technology to develop non-invasive interfaces with biological systems.