This thematic research area applies advanced analytical technologies, multi-omics profiling, and targeted therapeutic strategies to detect and treat diseases at the individual, cellular, and molecular scales. By overcoming the limitations of conventional, "one-size-fits-all" medicine, this field focuses on enabling the ultra-sensitive and early-stage diagnosis of pathologies, elucidating the unique genetic, molecular, and environmental profiles underlying complex diseases, and ultimately tackling global health challenges through highly tailored, patient-specific therapies.
Brief descriptions of the specific research areas are as follows:
- Biosensing and Point-of-Care Testing (POCT) Diagnostics: Creating ultra-sensitive biosensors, point-of-care devices, and liquid biopsy platforms for the rapid, non-invasive detection of disease-associated biomarkers at their earliest stages.
- Microfluidics: Developing miniaturized "lab-on-a-chip" devices and organ-on-a-chip platforms to enable precise fluid manipulation, high-throughput single-cell isolation, and physiologically relevant disease modeling.
- Nanomedicine: Engineering smart, biocompatible nanomaterials and targeted drug delivery systems to transport therapeutics directly to diseased tissues, maximizing efficacy while minimizing systemic side effects.
- Advanced Immunotherapy and CAR-T Cell Engineering: Designing next-generation cellular therapies, such as chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cells, to genetically program the immune system to recognize and eliminate cancers and refractory diseases.
- Exosome-based Diagnostics and Therapy: Harnessing natural extracellular vesicles (exosomes) as non-invasive biomarkers for disease monitoring and engineering them as highly biocompatible vehicles for targeted drug and gene delivery.
- Precision Musculoskeletal Medicine and Skeletal Aging: Investigating the molecular mechanisms of cellular senescence in bone and joint degeneration to develop targeted therapeutics (such as senolytics), while leveraging data-driven approaches to revolutionize personalized, community-based preventive care and treatment for age-related skeletal disorders.
- Ion Channel Therapeutics and Disease Signaling: Elucidating the role of membrane ion channels and their associated signal transduction in reproduction, endocrinology, and development to design highly targeted molecular therapies for channelopathies and endocrine-related disorders.
- AI-Driven Precision Diagnostics: Leveraging advanced machine learning algorithms, deep learning models, and multimodal data integration—combining clinical imaging, digital pathology and multi-omics—to automate high-precision disease detection, classify complex pathologies, and deliver real-time, personalized clinical decision support for proactive patient care.
- Intelligent Hybrid and Bionic Robotics: Engineering advanced hybrid robotic systems to deliver automated, patient-adaptive physical therapy while quantitatively diagnosing neuromuscular recovery in stroke survivors; Design bionic soft robots, micro/nanorobots, and functional interfacial materials using chemical and materials-engineering approaches.
Faculty members in this research area
