Wei TaoMaterials Today Rising Star Webinar II: Research on Biomaterials & Bioscience
Date: 15th March 9:00 PM (EST) /16th March 09:00 AM (GMT+ 8)
Speakers: the winners of 2021 Materials Today Rising Star Awards
Dr. Wei Tao (Harvard University), Dr. Jun Chen (University of California)
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Dr. Wei Tao (wtao@bwh.harvard.edu)
Webinar Topic: Materials Science Innovation in Medicine: “Training” the Drugs/Therapeutics to be Smarter
Abstract: Despite all of the coverage of new drugs, it is not enough to just have an effective drug. To enhance therapeutic efficacy and reduce the side effects, the drugs have to be protected and transported to the right location to get an effect at the right time. Over the past few decades, nano-/microscale materials-enabled drug delivery platforms have made tremendous advancements in preventing and treating human diseases. Especially, the recent great success achieved by the two highly effective mRNA nanoparticle vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic further highlights the great potential of drug delivery technologies. During the evolution of these drug delivery technologies, materials science innovation has played an important role from drug modification to the synthesis of different drug delivery platforms, which fulfills effective medical applications in various diseases including cancers, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, infectious diseases, and many others. In this talk, I will introduce our current studies on nano-/microscale materials-enabled drug delivery technologies with the promise to improve health care, as well as our efforts in accelerating their translation into the drug development pipeline.
Short Bio: Dr. Wei Tao is a Farokhzad Family Distinguished Chair for Innovation and a Principal Investigator in the Center for Nanomedicine, a Faculty Member in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative, and Pain Medicine, and a Faculty Member in the Gillian Reny Stepping Strong Center for Trauma Innovation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), Harvard Medical School (HMS). He is also the first Chaired Professor as an assistant professor in the history of his institution. His primary research interest is in designing and synthesizing functional biomaterials, revealing nano-bio interactions, and exploring their different biomedical applications. His research thrusts include fundamental materials innovation as well as their various applications in translational medicine. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles, with 60 of them being a corresponding author in PNAS, Nature Rev. Mater., Nature Rev. Cardiol., Nature Nanotechnol., Science Transl. Med., Nature Protoc., Nature Commun., Science Adv., Trend. Chem, Matter, Chem. Rev., Chem. Soc. Rev., Angew. Chem., Adv. Mater., etc. He has received multiple awards including the U.S. METAvivor Early Career Investigator Award, HMS/BWH Anaesthesia Department Basic Scientist Award, Khoury Innovation Award, Center for Nanomedicine Research Fund, Stepping Strong Breakthrough Innovator Award, American Heart Association (AHA) Collaborative Sciences Award, MIT Technology Review Top Chinese Innovators Under 35 (TR35), Clarivate’s Global Highly Cited Researchers List (2021), World's Top 2% Scientists (from Mendeley Data, Elsevier; 2019, 2020), Microsoft Academic Global Top 5 Trending Authors in Nanotechnology (2016-2020) and Top Authors in Nanomedicine, Chemical Society Reviews Emerging Investigator Award, Materials Today Rising Star Award, Journal of Materials Chemistry A Emerging Investigator Award, Materials Horizons Top 10 Outstanding Reviewers, Angewandte Chemie Outstanding Referees Award, Nanoscale Emerging Investigator Award, Precision Nanomedicine Rising Talent Award, etc. He also serves on numerous editorial boards including as Associate Editor of Journal of Nanobiotechnology (Springer Nature & BMC) and Exploration (Wiley), Editorial Board Member of Bioactive Materials (Elsevier & KeAi), Nano-Micro Letters (Springer Nature), and Advisory Board Member of Matter (Cell Press).
Jun Chen
Webinar topic: Smart Textiles for Personalized Health Care
Abstract: There is nothing more personal than healthcare. Health care should move from its current reactive and disease-centric system to a personalized, predictive, preventative, and participatory model with a focus on disease prevention and health promotion. As the world marches into the era of the Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G wireless, technology renovation enables the industry to offer a more individually tailored approach to healthcare with better health outcomes, higher quality, and lower cost. However, empowering the utility of IoT-enabled technologies for personalized health care is still significantly challenged by the shortage of cost-effective wearable biomedical devices to continuously provide real-time, patient-generated health data. Textiles have been concomitant and playing a vital role in the long history of human civilization. The textile forms endow biomedical devices with biocompatible, biodegradable, even bioabsorbable features, allowing them to serve as on-body healthcare platforms with incomparable wearing comfort. Merging biomedical devices and textiles becomes increasingly important owing to the growing trend of IoT. In this talk, I will introduce our current research on smart textiles for biomedical monitoring, textile for therapy, and textile power generation as an energy solution for future wearable medical devices.
Short Bio: Dr. Jun Chen is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research focuses on nanotechnology and bioelectronics for energy, sensing, and therapeutic applications in the form of smart textiles, wearables, and body area networks. He has published two books, 220 journal articles, with 120 of them being a corresponding author in Chemical Reviews, Chemical Society Reviews, Nature Materials, Nature Electronics, Nature Communications, Science Advances, Joule, Matter, and many others. His works were selected as Research Highlights by Nature and Science seven times and covered by world mainstream media over 1,200 times in total, including NPR, ABC, NBC, Reuters, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, Scientific American, and Newsweek. He also filed 14 US patents, including one licensed. With a current h-index of 80, Dr. Chen was identified to be one of the world’s most influential researchers in the field of Materials Science by the Web of Science Group. Among his many accolades are the the Thought Leaders by Azo Materials; 30 Life Sciences Leaders To Watch by Informa, UCLA Society of Hellman Fellows Award, Okawa Foundation Research Award, Materials Today Rising Star Award, Advanced Materials Rising Star, ACS Nano Rising Stars Lectureship Award, Chem. Soc. Rev. Emerging Investigator Award, JMCA Emerging Investigator Award, Nanoscale Emerging Investigator Award, Frontiers in Chemistry Rising Stars, IAAM Scientist Medal, 2020 Altmetric Top 100, Top 10 Science Stories of 2020 by Ontario Science Centre, Highly Cited Researchers 2020/2019/2021 in Web of Science, etc. Beyond research, he is an associate editor of Biosensors and Bioelectronics.