(7bq) Building New Materials and Electronics within Intact, Living Biological Systems: from Nanoelectronics through Polymeric Device to Genetically-Targeted Electronics

Rapidly advancing material science and nanoelectronics has been blurring the distinction between man-made and biological systems, providing tremendous opportunities in both fundamental research and biomedical applications. Exploring and exploiting cutting-edge, unconventional materials and electronics to solve specific biological questions and develop biomedical tools will form the core of my future research. In particular, my career objectives will focus on three areas: 1) Investigating nanomaterials and polymers for high-performance soft bioelectronics, and seeking their advanced human-machine interface; 2) developing optoelectronics tools and strategies for the intact brain activity mapping with single cell and single-spike resolution in behaving animals and 3) building cell-specific and genetically-targeted neuromodulation systems without genome editing.

Postdoctoral Research Summary: “Building functional materials and electronics within intact, living brain and cardiac systems”

Advisor: Zhenan Bao (Chemical Engineering), in a close collaboration with Karl Deisseroth (Bioengineering & Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences), Sergiu P. Pasca (Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences) and Anson Lee (Cardiothoracic Surgery), Stanford University

PhD Dissertation: “Biomimetics through nanoelectronics”

Advisor: Charles M. Lieber, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University

Research Experience

My academic training and research experience have provided me with a background in highly interdisciplinary area combing scientific disciplines including nanomaterial & nanoelectronics, polymer chemistry, tissue engineering, neuroengineering and medical engineering.

As a graduate student with Prof. Charles Lieber at Harvard University, I investigated semiconductor field-effect transistor as nanoscale sensors for the biological signal recording and then later develop the nanoelectronics into a three-dimensional (3D) flexible structure for sensing applications. I designed the nanoelectronic network to tissue scaffold as nanoelectronic scaffold (nanoES). Through the collaboration with Prof. Daniel Kohane and Prof. Robert Langer, within this nanoES, I cultured synthetic neural tissue and cardiac patch, representing the first example of “cyborg tissue”. Furthermore, I showed the response of these synthetic tissues to the 3D pharmacological stimulation and electrical stimulation as cardiac disease models, further proving the embedding of electronics with tissue in a seamless manner. I extended such nanoelectronics into the brain related research through inventing a “syringe-injectable mesh electronics” system. I precisely delivered such flexible and open-mesh nanoelectronic network into the rodent brain with targeted location, controlled unfolding and tissue penetration. Significantly, I demonstrated that this ultra-soft and open electronic network could form a long-term stable neural interface with vanishingly small immunoresponse from the neural tissue and thus enable a stable long-term neural activity recording at single-cell and single-spiking resolution.

My postdoctoral research with Prof. Zhenan Bao at Stanford University allows me to get further training in polymer science with a focus on polymeric electronics, as well as training in genome engineering, neuroengineering and cardiology. I have developed a genetically-targeted conductive polymer synthesis for connecting neuron in the intact, living brain tissue, and further demonstrated its biocompatibility and connection to external hardware with Prof. Karl Deisseroth. I applied such technology to the human brain organoid derived from neuropsychiatric disease modelled stem cells to study the tissue-wide activity modulation with Prof. Sergiu P. Pasca as a potential electronic therapeutic strategy. In addition, I have discovered several new materials systems including a conductive hydrogel with significantly reduced impedance for electrical recording, a photopatternable perfluorinated polymer system with low-k and ultrastability in solutions and a stretchable semiconductor that can be patterned through inkjet-printing. Accordingly, I have designed strategies to enable the micropatterning of those materials by the conventional photolithography to enable 1) a fully stretchable transistor array to drive an intrinsically stretchable organic light emitting electrochemical cell array and 2) a high-density electrode array for the cardiac arrhythmogenic activity mapping in living animal with Prof. Anson Lee.

Teaching Interests:

Aside from my research career, I also have extensive experience teaching Harvard and Stanford undergraduate students and graduate students. At Harvard University, I have TAed undergraduate-level classes for the pre-medical student in Physical Science. At Stanford University, I have guest-lectured graduate-level chemical engineering classes in Micro & Nanoscale Fabrication Engineering. I have received good reviews from both teaching experiences. I have been working in Chemical Engineering Department at Stanford and taken some Chemical Engineering core classes in both undergraduate-level and graduate-level thus I am willing to study and teach any existing classes, as well as design new classes. Last but not least, I mentored 1 undergraduate student in Pre-med and 1 graduate student in Chemistry at Harvard, and 3 graduate students in Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering at Stanford.

Selective Publication List (22 articles in total, citation: 2104)

(# indicates co-first author and * indicates co-corresponding author)

1. Jia Liu#, T. Fu#, Z. Cheng#, G. Hong, T. Zhou, L. Jin, M. Duvvuri, Z. Jiang, P. Kruskal, C. Xie, Z. Suo, Y. Fang* and C. M. Lieber*, “Syringe-injectable electronics,” Nature Nanotechnology 10, 629-636 (2015). Cover Article

• 10 World Changing Ideas, 2015 awarded by Scientific American
• Top Research of 2015 awarded by Chemical and Engineering News

• Special issued in Science: “The cyborg era begins”. (Science, 340, 1162-1165 (2013).)