Our lab is principally engaged in new chemistry and methods towards functionalized material surfaces/ interfaces. The research in our lab is highly multidisciplinary and aims to resolve fundamental challenges in material surfaces by exploiting controllable protein aggregation and adhesion. The achievements have emerged as new research directions in the field of Biointerface that are summarized as follows: 

New Protein Phase Transition Materials and Applications Engineered surface modification is of prime importance in modern material science. The use of bio-inspired catecholamine and recently reported coordination complexes of natural polyphenols and Fe(III) ions are excellent approaches towards this purpose, however, they still suffer from some problematic issues such as the easy formation of colored surface due to undesirable side oxidations on phenols and metal doping as well as difficulty to construct the stimuli-responsive reversible transition on surface state. In our lab, we endeavour to manipulate a surface property towards ultra-performance, multi-functionalities and smartness/responsiveness by utilizing newly-discovered lysozyme (as well as other specific proteins) phase transition. The phase-transited lysozyme product consisting of amyloid-contained microfiber network could stably attach onto metals, oxides, semiconductors and polymers. Such priming process imparts moderate hydrophilicity, enhanced corrosion resistance to surfaces and less colors. The priming also affords mild positive charges and enriched C-H bonds on surfaces, which consequently supports the growth of a series of functional building blocks including polymer brushes, colloids, vesicles, small molecules and bio-macromolecules based on chemically specific interactions.

Keyword: Polymer surface and interface; Biointerface; Protein aggregation and materials; Surface modification and functionalization; Amyloid aggregation