Living Machines Laboratory

Instability-driven Organoid Biogenesis

Mechanically enhanced gut spheroid formation and an active phase field theory for its instability-driven morphomechanics

Read more about our article in Nature Communications
A multiphysics solution for nerve injuries

A synergistic, sono-electro-mechanical therapeutic system to enhance peripheral nerve regeneration and motor function restoration

Read more about our article in Nano Today
Active Viscoelastic Rod Theory

An active viscoelastic rod model to elucidate the force-regulated state transitions of growing axons

Read more about our article in Physical Review Letters
The MUSE of Biology

Multi-scale, multi-modal structural engineering of biological systems for reconstructing the hierarchical orders of life

Read more about our article in Cell Stem Cell

Our Mission

Population ageing is one of the main problems of this century. Our group’s mission is to develop transformative technologies to address issues in reproduction and regeneration, which are not only pressing challenges faced by ageing societies across the globe, but also foreseeable risks in the new era of space exploration. Our research is rooted in the nexus of engineering, biology, and medicine. By integrating biological sciences with physical and chemical tools such as micro/nano-engineering, multi-functional materials, single-cell and spatial bioinformatics, and synthetic biology, we foster new understanding of biological systems as “living machines”, and innovate multi-scale, multi-modal modulations of such living machines for improving human life on earth and in space. In our research, we have made significant contributions to these areas: stem cell engineering, embryo and organ engineering, mechanobiology, and physics of active matter, and have been highlighted by Nature Materials, MIT Technology Review, and 35 Innovators Under 35 China.

Research

Embryo Engineering

The development of the embryo starts with a fertilized egg and unfolds through a series of spatiotemporally coordinated events that shape the hierarchical structures of life from m···

Organ Engineering

Organ engineering concerns the design, construction, maintenance, restoration, and modulation of organ anatomy and function both in vitro and in vivo. Organogenesis during embryoni···

Mechanobiology

Mechano-biological cross-talk, occurring at various scales of space and time, has been universally implicated in the development, homeostasis, regeneration, and disease of organism···

Physics of Active Matter

The production of a summary description of our world in the form of physical laws is a fundamental aim of science. So far, physical laws are mostly deduced from “passive” matter th···

Group Members

From left to right: (front) Feng Lin, Ziyue Bai, Yue Shao, Yizhao Han, Yiting Li; (back) Wei Pi, Tie Chang, Jianbo Bai, Xia Li, Shiyi Liu, Kunying Li

Selected Publications

[1] Wei Pi^#, Huating Chen^#, Yawei Liu^#, Jiangbing Xiang, Hongliang Zhang, Xinling Yang, Meiru Zhang, Jiawei Cao, Tie Chang, Yifan Zheng, Shiyi Liu, Hongjie Zhang, Qin Han*, Kai Liu*, Xiaobing Fu*, Yue Shao*, and Xiaoyan Sun*. Flexible sono-piezo patch for functional sweat gland repair through endogenous microenvironmental remodeling. ACS Nano, in press, 2024

[2] Feng Lin^#, Xia Li^#, Shiyu Sun^#, Zhongyi Li^#, Chenglin Lv, Jianbo Bai, Lin Song, Yizhao Han, Bo Li*, Jianping Fu, and Yue Shao*. Mechanically enhanced biogenesis of gut spheroids with instability-driven morphomechanics. Nature Communications, vol. 14, 6016, 2023

[3] Wei Pi, Feng Rao, Jiawei Cao, Meiru Zhang, Tie Chang, Yizhao Han, Yifan Zheng, Shiyi Liu, Qunyang Li, Xiaoyan Sun*, Yue Shao**. Sono-electro-mechanical therapy for peripheral nerve regeneration through piezoelectric nanotracts. Nano Today, vol. 50, 101860, 2023

[4] Huanxin Zhang, Kaixuan Zhang, Min Li, Yue Shao*, and Xi-Qiao Feng*. Force-regulated state transitions of growing axons. Physical Review Letters, vol. 129, 128101, 2022

[5] Yue Shao*, Jianping Fu. Engineering multiscale structural orders for high-fidelity embryoids and organoids. Cell Stem Cell, vol. 29, 722-743, 2022

[6] Yi Zheng, Yue Shao, and Jianping Fu*. A microfluidics-based stem cell model of early post-implantation human development. Nature Protocols, vol. 16, 309-326, 2021

[7] Yi Zheng, Xufeng Xue, Yue Shao, Sicong Wang, SajedehNasr Esfahani, Zida Li, Jonathon M. Muncie, Johnathon N. Lakins, Valerie M. Weaver, Deborah L. Gumucio, and Jianping Fu*. Controlled modelling of human epiblast and amnion development using stem cells. Nature, vol. 573, 421-425, 2019

[8] SajedehNasr Esfahani^#, Yue Shao^#, Agnes M. Resto Irizarry, Zida Li, Xufeng Xue, Deborah L. Gumucio, and Jianping Fu*. Microengineered human amniotic ectoderm tissue array for high-content developmental phenotyping. Biomaterials, vol. 216, 119244, 2019

[9] Kenichiro Taniguchi^#*, Yue Shao^#, Ryan F. Townshend, Chari Cortez, Clair Harris, Sasha Meshinchi, Sundeep Kalantry, Jianping Fu, K. Sue O'Shea, and Deborah L. Gumucio*. An apicosome initiates self-organizing morphogenesis of human pluripotent stem cells. The Journal of Cell Biology, vol. 216, 3981-3990, 2017

[10] Yue Shao^#, Kenichiro Taniguchi^#, Ryan F. Townshend, Toshio Miki, Deborah L. Gumucio*, and Jianping Fu*. A pluripotent stem cell-based model for post-implantation human amniotic sac development. Nature Communications, vol. 8, 208, 2017

[11] Yue Shao^#, KenichiroTaniguchi^#, Katherine Gurdziel, Ryan F. Townshend, Xufeng Xue, Koh Meng Aw Yong, Jianming Sang, Jason R. Spence, Deborah L. Gumucio*, and Jianping Fu*. Self-organized amniogenesis by human pluripotent stem cells in a biomimetic implantation-like niche. Nature Materials, vol. 16, 419-425, 2017

[12] Shinuo Weng*, Yue Shao*, Weiqiang Chen, and Jianping Fu*. Mechanosensitive subcellular rheostasisdrives emergent single-cell mechanical homeostasis. Nature Materials, vol. 15, 961-967, 2016

[13] Yue Shao^#, Jianming Sang^#, and Jianping Fu*. On human pluripotent stem cell control: The rise of 3D bioengineering and mechanobiology. Biomaterials, vol. 52, 26-43, 2015

[14] Yue Shao, and Jianping Fu*. Integrated micro/nanoengineered functional biomaterials for cell mechanics and mechanobiology: a materials perspective. Advanced Materials, vol. 26, 1494-1533, 2014

[15] Yue Shao, Hong-Ping Zhao, Xi-Qiao Feng*, and Huajian Gao. Discontinuous crack-bridging model for fracture toughness analysis of nacre. Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids, vol. 60, 1400-1419, 2012

Outreach

During Undergraduate Innovation Camp (2021), our students developed this distributed intelligent system (blue vehicles) that shows spontaneous swarming and circling around a target (red). This prototype demonstrates the potential to create machines to recapitulate the swarming intelligence typically observed in living systems.