|
|
|
|
Many congratulations to Dr. Weian Zhao for his tremendous research work for the past years and a recent publication in Nature Nanotechnology in July 2011.
Dr. Weian Zhao completed his BSc and MSc degrees in Chemistry at Shandong University (China) where he studied polymer, surface and colloidal chemistry. Dr. Zhao then obtained his PhD in Chemistry at McMaster University (Canada) in 2008. |
 |
During his PhD study, Dr. Zhao focused on the use of functional nucleic acid (i.e. aptamers, DNA based enzymes) to structure gold nanoparticles to construct well-defined nanostructures and biosensors for point-of-care diagnosis. Since 2008, Dr. Zhao has been a Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women's Hospital and MIT. His current research focuses on the development of novel molecular, nano- and micro-engineered tools for stem cell therapy and regenerative medicine, diagnosis and in vivo imaging, and elucidating stem cell and cancer biology. Dr. Zhao will join the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, the Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center and the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center at University of California, Irvine as an Assistant Professor later this year. Dr. Zhao published more than 30 research articles including Nature Nanotechnology and Nature Materials and 5 invited book chapters. Dr. Zhao has filed 2 patents and given 40 presentations in conferences or as invited talks. He won numerous prizes including "Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-Financed Student Abroad", "Selected participant of the 60th Meeting of Nobel Laureates, Lindau, Germany", "Materials Research Society (MRS) Graduate Student Award" and "NSERC Innovation Challenge Award". Dr. Zhao is an Editorial Board Member of Journal Nanotechnology.
|
In his Nature Nanotechnology paper (“Cell-surface sensors for real-time probing of cellular environments.” 2011, 6, 524-531), Dr. Zhao and his colleagues have developed a cell-surface sensor technology for monitoring single-cell interactions in real-time in vitro and potentially in vivo. This innovation addresses needs in both science and medicine by providing the ability to further understand complex cell biology, track transplanted cells, and develop effective therapeutics. The cell-signaling sensors researchers currently use are limited to measuring the activity in the bulk environment that a group of cells are in. In this study, Dr. Zhao and coworkers anchor a sensor to the membrane of individual cells, allowing them to monitor soluble signals within the cellular nanoenvironment in real-time with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution. This therefore has far reaching implications in understanding of signaling events that define a site of inflammation for example or the stem cell niche, which may have implications for treatment of many diseases and development of new drugs.
If anyone is interested in more information, you are welcome to contact Dr. Zhao via Email: weianzhao.uci@gmail.com
Cheers
HMS-CSSA
|
|
