We share the VISION of EDUCATING ambitious young scientists and engineers to make impacts beyond individual efforts through team projects and collaborative learning in academia and industry.
Understand and control microenvironment impact on chronic liver disease progression. We TRANSLATE technologies and knowledges into solutions for drug development, diagnostics and therapeutics.
Quantitative analysis of the dynamic process of liver regeneration and chronic liver diseases.
Investigating the contraction and propagation mechanism of secretory lumen such as bile canaliculi.
Developing novel and useful biomaterials, cell sources, and analytics for long-term maintenance of highly functional epithelial cells in culture.
Developing robust, scalable, low cost and predictive in vitro drug and toxin testing platforms.
Respect : every TMBL member is important and yet consciously sensitive to other members and the collective impacts. Decisions incorporate inputs from all the stakeholders for fairness and transparency.
Professionalism: every TMBL member strives to attain ever higher quality and standard of her/his own work through mutual empowerment, critique and support to each other.
No-walls culture: solutions to real-life problems can never be confined within artificially-created boundaries (organizational, disciplinary, cultural, inter-personal, or mental inertia).
Sheetz, M., and Yu, H. (2018) The Cell as a Machine, Cambridge University Press, ISBN: 9781107052734.
This unique introductory text has been written by a Lasker Award winning cell biologist; and his PhD student who turned into a biomedical engineer who innovates multiple technologies into award winning companies. It is based on the content and to serve as the text for a course, "Cell as a Machine”, offered by leading universities in the USA and Asia. The course started in 2003 as W3150/4150 in Columbia University, and then taught as course 2.799 in Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and MB5101 in National University of Singapore since 2009, which was extended in different years to Penn, Georgia Tech, UIUC, UC Berkeley/San Diego/Irvine/Davis/Merced, City College of New York, Minnesota, Wash U St Louis, Wisconsin, Boston U and Texas A&M in the US, Hong Kong UST and Zhejiang University in Asia.
The text explains cell functions using the engineering principles of robust devices. Adopting a process-based approach to understanding cell and tissue biology, it describes the molecular and mechanical features that enable the cell to be robust in operating its various components, and explores the ways in which molecular modules respond to environmental signals to execute complex functions. The design and operation of a variety of complex functions are covered, including engineering lipid bilayers to provide fluid boundaries and mechanical controls, adjusting cell shape and forces with dynamic filament networks, and DNA packaging for information retrieval and propagation. Numerous problems, case studies and application examples help readers connect theory with practice, and solutions for instructors and videos of lectures accompany the book online. Assuming only basic mathematical knowledge, this is an invaluable resource for graduate and senior undergraduate students taking single-semester courses in cell mechanics, biophysics, mechanobiology, and cell/tissue biology from a fresh perspective.
Uniquely links together the biology, biophysics, and engineering principles underlying cell functions
Avoids complex mathematical treatments, making it accessible to students with only a basic mathematical background
Additional information about many of the functions described in the book can be found online at www.mechanobio.info
Wu, X., Lou, X., Zhou, H., Raymond, J.J., Kwang, L.G., Ong, F.Y.T., Springs, S.L., and Yu, H. (2024) Detection and absolute quantification biosensing tools for food authentication: CRISPR/Cas, digital CRISPR and beyond. Trends in Food Science & Technology,March 2024; 145: 104349. doi: 10.1016/j.tifs.2024.104349.
Background: Food authenticity is essential to protect against fraudulent activities and ensure food safety. However, traditional authentication methods have limited capabilities due to lengthy testing period, bulky equipment, and low sensitivity and specificity. To address this, CRISPR/Cas and digital CRISPR (dCRISPR) have emerged as potential tools for quick and reliable food authentication.
Scope and approach: This review focuses on the CRISPR/Cas system and absolute quantification technologies, like sample partitioning-based dCRISPR, for food authentication. It provides a detailed overview of various Cas proteins for detection, diverse amplification methods to enhance signal, and different digital sample partitioning techniques facilitating absolute quantification. Notably, it explores the latest advancements of CRISPR/Cas and digital assays for food authentication applications. Furthermore, it discusses the potential opportunities and challenges that CRISPR/Cas and dCRISPR present in food authentication.
Key findings and conclusions: CRISPR/Cas and dCRISPR are ground breaking technologies for food authentication. When combined with digital sample partitioning, dCRISPR become even more sensitive and accurate than normal CRISPR/Cas-based detection, while also providing absolute quantification. These techniques can detect and quantify food adulterants, identify genetically modified food, distinguish closely-related species, and authenticate clean labels. With improved performance, CRISPR/Cas and dCRISPR have the potential to revolutionize the food supply chain.
Zhao, S., Zhang, L., Zhao, J., Tasnim, F., and Yu, H. (2024) Publication characteristics and visualized analysis of research about liver sinusoidal endothelial cells. iLiver, March 2024; 3(1): 100075. doi: j.iliver.2023.11.002.
Background and aims: Through visual analysis of related literature, the main research direction and hot spots of liver sinusoidal endothelial cells (LSECs) in recent 24 years were explored.
Methods: This study used bibliometric analysis with CiteSpace, VOSviewer, Biblioshiny and online analytic tool bibliometric.com to provide a quantitative analysis, hot spot mining, and commentary of articles published in the field of LSECs research. The relevant literature in the Web of Science Core Collection (WOSCC) was searched from 2000 to 2023. The publications with topics or titles or keywords containing LSECs were included into this study. The countries, organizations, journals, authors, and keywords of the publications were summarized and analyzed.
Results: This study included 3,747 publications from 14,132 authors belonging to 389 institutions in 61 countries/ regions and published in 150 journals, with 156,309 citations. The United States contributed most (1,150) to the publications. The most productive institution was the University of Sydney. Hepatology accounts for the most output (293, 7.8%), European authors had a widespread cooperation. The most productive author was Adam DH with 68 papers. Immunological function of LSECs is research hot spot.
Conclusion: This study highlights key trends based on a large dataset of the most influential publications about LSECs research over a 24-year period. It provides important clues and ideas for researchers focusing in this area and facilitates future liver disease mechanism, understanding, and treatment.
Ang, J., Bennie, R.Z., Ogilvie, O.J., Trlin, H.J., Ng, S.K., Yu, H., and Domigan, L.J. (2023) Sculpting the Future of Meat: Biomaterial Approaches and Structural Engineering for Large-Scale Cell-Based Production. Sustainable Food Proteins, 21 December 2023; 2023: 1-18. doi: 10.1002/sfp2.1023.
Novel foods are an increasing reality (and necessity) for our global food system and need to be protein-rich for good nutrition. Cell-based meats use the edible biomass of in vitro cultured animal cells harvested from the muscle tissue of live animals, removing the need to raise and slaughter animals. It is a viable alternative that is environmentally friendly, lowers resource consumption, and reduces health risks associated with traditional livestock farming. The cellbased meat industry has boomed over the last 5 years with dozens of start-ups being founded and millions of dollars in capital raised. While cell-based meat faces technical, socio-political, and regulatory challenges, it is a nascent technology with key technical challenges such as cell line stability, nonanimal-derived culture media development, and bioprocessing for commercialscale uses. Here, we review the current field of cell-based meat production at a lab scale and assess the feasibility and scalability of commercial production and the challenges that these production methods face. Moreover, we discuss the advancements in technologies for large-scale manufacturing of cell-based meat covering aspects including optimized culture media formulations, edible scaffold designs, and bioreactors for high-density cell culture to reduce production costs.
