Education Experience

PhD (MEBCS) Singapore-MIT Alliance, 2008

MEng & BEng( Chem. Eng.) Tsinghua University, China, 2002 & 2000

Research area

Metal nanomaterials of different sizes, shapes, and structures are finding increasing acceptance in biological applications. Metal nanomaterials can be interfaced with biological materials to form a new class of designer organic-inorganic hybrids (BioNanoMetals) which can be used to enable the green synthesis of metal nanomaterials and the safe use of nanometals in biomedical applications. Our research group is interested in investigating the basic design principles for functional BioNanoMetals and addressing fundamental issues on the interactions between the biological systems and metal nanomaterials. There are three major parts of our research. 2.1. Green Chemistry for Shape- and Size-Controlled Synthesis of Nanometals Recent pursuit of the sustainable nanotechnology has attracted increasing emphasis on the development of cost effective and environmental benign procedures (“green chemistry”) in nanomaterials synthesis. This entails necessarily the use of an environmentally acceptable solvent system, an eco-friendly reducing agent, and a non-hazardous capping agent for the stabilization of the nanomaterials formed. The use of biology as a synthetic tool for metal nanomaterials satisfies all these selection criteria. An additional advantage of this method is the as-synthesized nanomaterials are decorated with biological species, which help improve the biocompatibility of the final products for biomedical applications. 2.2. Explore Biomedical Applications of Biogenerated Nanometals The unusual optical properties of small metal nanomaterials, their size-dependent electrochemistry, their high chemical stability, and their highly biocompatible surfaces (biomolecules) have made them the model system of choice for exploring a wide range of biomedical applications including diagnostics (e.g. bioimaging and biosensing) and therapeutics (e.g. drug delivery and photothermal ablation). 2.3. Engineering Ultrasmall Au/Ag Nanoclusters for Biomedical Applications