Biography: Dr. Xue is currently a principle investigator in State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology/College of Pharmacy, and lab chief of Laboratory of Theranostic Nanomedicine in Nankai University. She got her PhD degree in National Center in Nanoscience and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Xue’s lab has long been engaged in the nanomedicine for their biological activation, structure-effect relationship, biological safety evaluation and the further mechanisms, committing to the application of nanomaterials in biomedical field. The study included a number of major human diseases (cancer, Alzheimer's disease, drug addiction), and in-depth exploration of various mechanisms (autophagy, nerve regeneration, tumor resistance, etc.). In recent five years, she has published high-quality papers as first/corresponding author, including Nature Nanotechnology, Molecular Cell, Nano Letters, ACS Nano, Small, etc. Dr. Xue is also associated editor of Current Drug Delivery.

Topic: Nanomedicine: A New Approach for Treatment Drug Addiction

Abstract: Drug addiction is still a serious public health problem, and so far, there is no effective pharmacotherapy available for treatment. It is well known that almost all addictive drugs increase extracellular dopamine in the nucleus accumbens, a critical brain region involved drug abuse and addiction. In theory, any strategy that can rapidly remove or clean up excessive extracellular dopamine produced by drugs of abuse would be possibly useful for treatment of drug abuse and addiction. An early strategy was to develop a vaccine to neutralize drug-enhanced extracellular dopamine. However, it was not successful due to the blood-brain barrier that blocks blood dopamine antibodies into the brain. Based on a recent finding that carbon nanoparticle-coated carbon electrodes used in electrochemical assays are more sensitive and effective than uncoated electrodes in oxidation of dopamine, we hypothesized that such carbon nanomaterials might be useful for the treatment of drug addiction by rapidly adsorbing and oxidizing the extracellular dopamine produced by drugs of abuse. To test this hypothesis, we used a special carbon nanomaterial called “aggregated single-walled nanotubes (aSWNTs)” to examine whether aSWNTs can antagonize the behavioral and neurochemical effects of methamphetamine (METH), possibly the most potent psychostimulant and dopamine releaser. We found that intracerebroventricular microinjections of aSWNTs (1-2 ng/each side) not only blocked METH-induced robust increase in extracellular DA in the striatum, but also blocked METH self-administration, METH-induced conditioned place preference and METH- or cue-induced relapse to drug-seeking behavior. Strikingly, such a nanogram range of drug amount, did not produce any detectable neural toxicity or other unwanted side-effects. These findings, for the first time, suggest that a special carbon nanomaterial may be used as a nanomedicine for the treatment of methamphetamine or other psychostimulant addiction.

Biography: Dr. Hong Yang received her Ph.D. degree in Chemical Engineering from University of Waterloo in 2007. She has completed postdoctoral trainings in Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy and Faculty of Medicine from University of Toronto during 2008-2011. She was a research associate in BC Children Hospital Research and University of British Columbia during 2012-2016. Currently, she is a principle investigator (PI) and a specially appointed professor (Eastern Scholar) in Shanghai Jiaotong University affiliated First People’s Hospital. Her research interest is pulmonary nanomedicine, specifically creating and screening bioactive nanomaterials to modulate immune responses in the lung. She has authored/co-authored more than 28 refereed journal papers, holds 3 patents and has presented her work in a number of national/international conferences.

Topic: Anti-Inflammatory Nanoparticles: Design, Screening and Mechanism of Action

Abstract: Manipulation of immune responsiveness using nano-devices provides a new strategy to treat human diseases. Toll-like receptor (TLR) signaling plays a central role in the pathophysiology of many acute and chronic human inflammatory diseases, and pharmacological regulation of TLR responses is anticipated to be beneficial in many of these inflammatory conditions. In seeking nanoparticles that potently inhibit TLR signaling, we designed and screened a library of physiologically stable peptide-gold nanoparticle hybrids and discovered a unique class of nanoparticles which exhibit a broad inhibitory activity on TLR signaling. As exemplified using TLR4, the nanoparticles were found to inhibit both arms of TLR4 signaling cascade triggered by the prototypical ligand, lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Further mechanistic studies showed that the inhibitory activity of the nanoparticles was through blocking the activation of two pro-inflammatory transcription factors, the nuclear transcription factor kappa B (NF-B) and interferon regulatory factor 3 (IRF3), triggered by LPS. Through structure-activity relationship studies, we identified the key chemical components of the hybrids that contribute to their immunomodulatory activity. Specifically, the hydrophobicity and aromatic ring structure of the amino acids on the peptides were essential for modulating TLR4 responses. This work enhances our fundamental understanding of the role of nanoparticle surface chemistry in regulating innate immune signaling, and identifies specific nanoparticle hybrids that may represent a novel class of anti-inflammatory therapeutics for human inflammatory diseases.

Biography: Professor Jin Shen received the B.S. degree in automation from Northeast Heavy Machinery Institute, China, in 1985, the M.S. degree in automation from China Agricultural University, China, in 1996, and the Ph.D. degree in optical engineering from University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, China, in 2004. He is currently a professor in School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering(SEEE) at Shandong University of Technologythe(SDUT), and the member of academic committee of SDUT, director of the professor committee of SEEE. His current research interests involve particle sizing, correlation spectroscopy measurement and weak signal detection. He has completed more than 30 reseach projects, including Frequency Decomposition Characteristics of Dynamic Light Scattering Signal of Ultrafine Particles supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Fractal Character of Dynamic Light Scattering of Particles supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province, On-line Measurement of Grain Moisture during Drying Process supported by Ministry of Agriculture of China. He was awarded the Science-Technology Progress Prize of Shandong Province for three times, and has more than 100 scientific and technological papers published on international journals and international conference proceedings. He had been invited as Visiting Professor in the University of South Australia from Jun to December 2010, and Visiting Researcher in Kansas State University from October 2012 to August 2013.

Topic: Particle Size Distribution Measurememnt by Multiangle Dynamic Light Scattering

Abstract: In dynamic light scattering measurements, it is still a difficult problem to accurately recover a bimodal particle size distribution with a peak position ratio less than ~2:1 containing large particles (>350nm). To accurately recover this particle size distribution, we employed multiangle dynamic light scattering measurements in this paper, and used a weighted constrained regularization method to process the multiangle dynamic light scattering data for estimating the particle size distribution. We also investigated the performance of this approach by analyzing particle size distributions recovered from simulated and experimental data. The both of simulated and experimental data were about the bimodal particle size distributions with different peak positions and peak intensity ratios. We find that this method can significantly reduce the relative error in peak position and improve the accuracy of the recovery compared with other common methods. And we can recover a bimodal particle size distribution with a peak position ratio of 1.7 when the PSD contains large particles.

Biography: Luheng Wang received the Ph.D. degree from the Department of Precision Instruments and Mechanology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. He is a professor and doctoral supervisor with the School of Information Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, China.
He is currently the Shenghua scholar distinguished professor, and the leader of the CSU flexible sensor lab. His current research interest is to study the key mechanical/electrical properties and mechanisms for the novel flexible sensitive materials which possess multi-sensing-functions (e.g. pressure sensitive function, temperature sensitive function, magnetic sensitive function, and gas sensitive function, etc.), and to develop the multi-functional flexible sensor system based on the aforementioned sensitive materials.
Recent years, he has published many papers in the top journals in the fields of Sensor, Instrumentation, Micro Electrical Mechanical System, and Electron Device, etc. (e.g. “IEEE-ASME Trans. Mecharonics”, “IEEE Trans. Electron Dev.”, “IEEE Electron Dev. Lett.”, “IEEE Trans. Instrum. Measur.”, “J. Microelectromech. S.”, “Carbon”, “Compos. Sci. Technol.”, “Compos. Part-A”, “Sens. Actuat. B-Chem.”, “Sens. Actuat. A-Phys.”, “IEEE Sens. J.”, “Smart Mater. Struct.”, “J. Polym. Sci. Part-B: Polym. Phys.”, etc.). As the first inventor, he has been granted more than ten invent patents.
As the Principal Investigator, he has undertaken many scientific projects, such as “the National Nature Science Foundation of China”, “Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education”, “the Shenghua Scholar Program of Central South University”, “the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities”, and “the Program for Excellent Talents in University”, etc. The flexible piezoresistive sensor system he developed has solved the key difficult problem of the interlayer pressure measurement between the curved surfaces with small space in the modern industry equipment.
He has been invited as the reviewer for many SCI journals, such as “IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron.”, “IEEE Trans. Instrum. Measur.”, “Compos. Part-A”, “Compos. Part-B”, “Nanotechnol.”, “IEEE Sens. J.”, “J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys.”, “Sens. Actuat. A-Phys.”, “J. Appl. Polym. Sci.”, etc. He has also been invited as the keynote speaker to give plenary presentations in many international conferences. He has won many scientific researching and teaching awards. Many of his students have also won the national scholarships and the top-level school scholarships.

Topic: Piezoresistive Composite Made of Nano Conductive Fillers and Polymer Matrix

Abstract: Nano conductive fillers can be dispersed into the polymer matrix to construct a piezoresistive composite. The conductive network made of the nano conductive fillers in the composite can be changed by the external pressure, which results in the variations in the resistance of the composite. The existing fabrication methods for the composite have been reported. The typical piezoresistivities of the composite have been summarized. The classical and existing theories on the piezoresistive mechanisms of the composite have been given. The applications of the composite made of the nano conductive fillers and the polymer matrix in the development of the flexible pressure sensor have also been introduced.

Biography: Dr. Peng-Sheng Wei received Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering Department at University of California, Davis, in 1984. He has been a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Electro-Mechanical Engineering of National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, since 1989. Dr. Wei has contributed to advancing the understanding of and to the applications of electron and laser beam, plasma, and resistance welding through theoretical analyses coupled with verification experiments. Investigations also include studies of their thermal and fluid flow processes, and formations of the defects such as humping, rippling, spiking and porosity. Dr. Wei has published more than 80 journal papers, and delivered more than 90 times of Keynote or Invited Speeches in international conferences. He is a Fellow of AWS (2007), and a Fellow of ASME (2000). He also received the Outstanding Research Achievement Awards from both the National Science Council (2004), and NSYSU (1991, 2001, 2004), the Outstanding Scholar Research Project Winner Award from National Science Council (2008), the Adams Memorial Membership Award from AWS (2008), the Warren F. Savage Memorial Award from AWS (2012), and the William Irrgang Memorial Award from AWS (2014). He has been the Xi-Wan Chair Professor of NSYSU since 2009, and Invited Distinguished Professor in the Beijing University of Technology, China, during 2015-2017.

Topic: Transport Phenomena in 3D Printing in Nano-scale

Abstract: This study numerically investigates transient transport processes during the melting of an array of nanoparticles on a surface subject to an electromagnetic wave in a TM mode. TM mode represents that magnetic field is perpendicular to incident plane containing electrical field. A systematical investigation of heating and melting of an array of nanoparticles on a surface is essentially required to understand 3-D printing processing and nanotechnology. The present model considers fluid flow in the ambient to be compressible, while that in liquid phase of workpiece is laminar. Thermocapillary force and electromagnetic force are included. The results show that fluid flow and heat transfer associated with surface deformation result in complicated transport phenomena, especially for different arrangements of arrays of particles and characteristics of incident electromagnetic wave.

Biography: Professor Kuan-Wei Lee received a PhD degree from the Department of Electrical Engineering, National Cheng-Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, in 2006. He joined the Department of Electronic Engineering at I-Shou University as an assistant professor in 2006, was promoted to associate professor in August 2009, and was promoted to full professor in February 2013. Professor Lee’s main research focuses on metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) technology and its application in GaAs-based electronic devices. He was elected a Distinguished Teaching Instructor by the College of Electrical and Information Engineering at I-Shou University in 2010. Professor Lee received the Outstanding Electrical Engineer Award from The Chinese Institute of Electrical Engineering (CIEE) in 2011 and was listed in Marquis 2011-2012, 2016-2017 Who’s Who in Science and Engineering.

Topic: Advances and Opportunities of Liquid-Phase Oxidation for Device Applications

Abstract: The objective of the speech is to present the advances of the liquid-phase oxidation on III-V materials. It will outline the application to GaAs-based metal-oxide-semiconductor high-electron-mobility transistors (MOS-HEMTs). Furthermore, the speech will address how the liquid-phase oxidation can be applied to device isolation and fully planarization of fabricated surfaces. The speech will present some previous works, and new results that the group is currently working on.