News

2023


Dec 2023: Prof. Zhao was selected as a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher 2023. Congratulations!

Oct 2023: Xinyue, Shaoting, and collaborators’ paper on Fatigue-resistant hydrogel optical fibers enable peripheral nerve optogenetics during locomotion was published in Nature Methods. Nature Methods HighlightMIT News.

June 2023: SanaHeal a startup company based on the bioadhesive technology developed in Zhao Lab won the 2023 Nature Spinoff Prize. Nature outlook about SanaHeal. Nature paper on bioadhesive technology.

June 2023: Tao, Hyunwoo, Jingjing, Heejung, and collaborators’ paper on 3D printable high-performance conducting polymer hydrogel for all-hydrogel bioelectronic interfaces was published in Nature Materials.  Nature Materials PerspectiveMIT News.

 

 

2022


Dec 2022: Sarah Wu won the 2022 Fall MRS Graduate Student Award, Gold Award!

Dec 2022: Prof. Zhao was selected as a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher 2022. Congratulations!

Nov 2022: TIME Best Invention of 2022 selected our invention of bioadhesive ultrasound capable of long-term continuous imaging of deep organs. Congratulations!

Nov 2022: Chonghe Wang was selected among Forbes 30 under 30 2023 in the category of Science. Chonghe was selected based on the invention of bioadhesive ultrasound capable of long-term continuous imaging of deep organs. Congratulations!

Nov 2022: Dr. Yoonho Kim won the inaugural 2022 SVINnovator from the Society of Vascular and Interventional Neurology! Robotically controlled microwires navigated their way to the $10k first prize. Congratulations!

Oct 2022: Dr. Xiaoyu Chen won the 2022 Baxter Young Investigator Award. Congratulations!

Sep 2022: Jingjing was selected to join the Rising Stars in Soft and Biological Matter Symposium 2022 at the University of Chicago! Congratulations!

Jul 2022: Chonghe, Xiaoyu, Liu, Tao, and collaborators' paper on Bioadhesive ultrasound for long-term continuous imaging of diverse organs was published in ScienceScience PerspectiveAltmetric score, MIT NewsMIT Spotlight, Summary Video.

Jun 2022: Hyunwoo and Yoonho are named to MIT Technology Review's “35 Innovators Under 35" of 2022. Congratulations!

May 2022: Chase won the Teaser Talk award at the NEW.Mech2022! Congratulations!

May 2022: Sarah was awarded the Den Hartog Travel Award from MechE! Congratulations!

Apr 2022: Yoonho successfully defended his Ph.D.! Congratulations!

Apr 2022: Yoonho, Emily, Jaehun, and collaborators' paper on Telerobotic neurovascular interventions with magnetic manipulation was published in Science RoboticsMIT News Summary Video.

Feb 2022: Jingjing, Hyunwoo, and collaborators' paper on An off-the-shelf bioadhesive patch for sutureless repair of gastrointestinal defects was published in Science Translational MedicineMIT News.

Feb 2022: Yoonho and Prof. Zhao's review paper on Magnetic Soft Materials and Robots was published in Chemical Reviews

 

2021


Dec 2021: Xinyue successfully defended her thesis to become a Ph.D. Congratulations!

Nov 2021: Yoonho, Prof. Zhao, and collaborators' comment article on Shaping the future of robotics through materials innovation was published in Nature Materials

Nov 2021: Prof. Zhao was named a Highly Cited Researcher 2021 by ClarivateAG. Congratulations!

Nov 2021: Both Sarah and Jingjing were named First-tier Winners to receive Baxter Young Investigator Awards for 2021. Congratulations! 

Aug 2021: Shaoting and collaborators' paper on A soft neuroprosthetic hand providing simultaneous myoelectric control and tactile feedback was published in Nature Biomedical EngineeringMIT NewsMIT Spotlight.

Aug 2021: Hyunwoo, Jingjing, Xinyu and collaborators' paper on Rapid and coagulation-independent haemostatic sealing by a paste inspired by barnacle glue was published in Nature Biomedical EngineeringMIT NewsMIT Spotlight.

Apr 2021: Xinyue, Yueying, and collaborators' paper on Magnetic Living Hydrogels for Intestinal Localization, Retention, and Diagnosis was published in Advanced Functional Materials .

Apr 2021: Jiahua, Shaoting, and collaborators' paper on Strong fatigue-resistant nanofibrous hydrogels inspired by lobster underbelly was published in Matter.

Apr 2021: Prof. Zhao, Xiaoyu, Hyunwoo, Shaoting, Xinyue, and German's review paper on Soft Materials by Design: Unconventional Polymer Networks Give Extreme Properties  was published in Chemical Reviews.

Mar 2021: Xinyue, Hyunwoo, and collaborators' work on Hydrogel-based biocontainment of bacteria for continuous sensing and computation was published in Nature Chemical Biology.

Mar 2021: Sarah, Heather and James won the NSF GRFP fellowship. Congratulations!

Feb 2021: Heejung won the Peebles Award in 2021 Annual Meeting of The Adhesion Society. Congratulations!

Feb 2021: Zhao Lab welcomes a new graduate student, Jaehun Choe. Welcome!

Feb 2021: Sarah, Hyunwoo, Jingjing and collaborators' paper on A Multifunctional Origami Patch for Minimally Invasive Tissue Sealing was published in Advanced Materials. MIT News. Video.

2020


Dec 2020: Xinyue won the 2020 MRS Graduate Student Silver Award. Congratulations!  

Nov 2020: Sarah and Heejung won the BMES Medtronic Design Award 1st Prize. Congratulations!  

Nov 2020: Shaoting's paper on Fracture of polymer networks with diverse topological defects was published in Physcial Review E

Sep 2020: Both Yoonho and Hyunwoo have been named graduate finalists in the 2020 Collegiate Inventors Competition (CIC)Yoonho for his invention “Robo-thread" and Hyunwoo for his invention “SanaHeal". Congratulations!

Sep 2020: Jue, Hyunwoo, Jingjing, Xiaoyu, and collaborators' paper on Electrical bioadhesive interface for bioelectronics was published in Nature Materials

Sep 2020: Shaoting and collaborators' paper on Dynamic intermolecular interactions through hydrogen bonding of water promote heat conduction in hydrogels was published in Material Horizons

Sep 2020: German, Yan, Yueying , and collaborators' paper on Ultrathin and Robust Hydrogel Coatings on Cardiovascular Medical Devices to Mitigate Thromboembolic and Infectious Complications was published in Advanced Healthcare Materials

Jun 2020: Xiaoyu, Hyunwoo, and Jingjing's paper on Instant tough bioadhesive with triggerable benign detachment was published online in PNAS.

Jun 2020: Liu and Yoonho's paper on Hard-magnetic elastica was published in JMPS

Apr 2020: Xinyue has been listed in Forbes 30-Under-30 Asia Healthcare & Science 2020. Congratulations!

Mar 2020: Hyunwoo and Baoyang's paper on 3D printing of conductive polymers was published in Nature CommunicationsMIT News.

Mar 2020: Aki, Hyunwoo and Baoyang’s paper on Strong adhesion of wet conducting polymers on diverse substrates was published in Science AdvancesMIT News.

Feb 2020: Ji, Shaoting, Xinyue, and collaborators' paper on Fatigue-resistant adhesion of hydrogels was published in Nature Communications.

Feb 2020: Xinyue and Shaoting's review paper on Hydrogel machines was published in Materials Today.

Jan 2020: Xinyu and Hyunwoo's paper on Hydration and swelling of dry polymers for wet adhesion was published in JMPS.

 

2019


Oct 2019: Prof. Zhao and Yoonho's News & Views article on Soft microbes programmed by nanomagnets was published in Nature

Oct 2019: Hyunwoo, Xinyu, and collaborators' paper on Dry double-sided tape for adhesion of wet tissues and devices was published in Nature. MIT News, MIT Spotlight, STM Editor's Choice.

Aug 2019: Yoonho, German, and Shengduo's paper on Ferromagnetic soft continuum robots was published in Science Robotics. MIT News, MIT Spotlight, Nature Research Highlight (Web), Nature Research Highlight (Paper), Media Reports.

May 2019: Shaoting, Ji and Xinyue' paper on Muscle-like fatigue-resistant hydrogels by mechanical training was published in PNAS

April 2019: Prof. Zhao was invited to join the editorial board of Science Advances.

March 2019: Baoyang, Hyunwoo, Shaoting and collaborators' paper on Pure PEDOT:PSS hydrogels was published in Nature Communications

February 2019:  Zhao Lab alumnus, Teng Zhang, received the NSF CAREER award. Teng was a postdoctoral associate at MIT in 2014 and 2015. Congratulations!

January 2019: Xinyue, Shaoting and collaborators' paper on Ingestible hydrogel device was published in Nature CommunicationsPaper, Video, MIT News

January 2019: Shaoting and group members’ work on Anti-fatigue-fracture hydrogels was published in Science Advances. We showed that designing anti-fatigue-fracture hydrogels requires making the fatigue crack encounter and fracture objects with energies per unit area much higher than that for fracturing a single layer of polymer chains.

2018


December 2018: Prof. Zhao was named as a Highly Cited Researcher in 2018 by Web of Science.

December 2018: Hyunwoo and Baoyang's review paper on Hydrogel bioelectronics was published in Chemical Society Reviews. We systematically revealed the design principles for bioelectronics and discussed hydrogels' merits and potential in bioelectronics.

December 2018: Guoying, Ruike and collaborators' work on Soft wall-climbing robot was published in Science Robotics.

October 2018: Ruike and collaborators' work on Controlled crack propagation for atomic precision handling of wafer-scale two-dimensional materials was published in Science. We developed a model to quantitatively guide the crack propagation in layered 2D materials. MIT News.

July 2018: Yoonho, Hyunwoo and Ruike’s work on Printing ferromagnetic domains for untethered fast-transforming soft materials was published in Nature. MIT Video. Nature Video. MIT report. Nature News. Media report. MIT Spotlight.

July 2018: Vivas, Ruike and German's work on Folding artificial mucosa with cell-laden hydrogels guided by mechanics models was published in PNAS.

2017


December 2017: Xinyue, Hyunwoo, Shaoting and collaborators from Lu group developed high-resolution (30um) large-scale (3 cm) 3D printing of living materials guided by predictive models in Advanced Materials. MIT report. MIT Spotlight. News. Video Abstract. Advanced Materials front cover.

October 2017: Our IP on elastomer-hydrogel hybrid (M.I.T. Case No. 18522) has been licensed.

October 2017: Prof Zhao's explained how to design toughness and strength for soft materials on PNAS.

October 2017: German, Hyunwoo and Xinyue made hydrogels “impermeable", a property that has been regarded as impossible for hydrogels. Advanced Healthcare Materials. MIT report. MIT Spotlight. MIT MechE Front page. Boston.

August 2017: SAMs Lab's paper on separating viscoelasticity and poroelasticity of gels won 2016 AMS Best Paper Award.

July 2017: SAMs Lab and collaborators' paper on design and modeling of hygroscopic bio-hybrid actuators and devices published in Science Advances. MIT News. Video. MIT Frontpage.

June 2017: Shaoting and Yunwei's paper on fringe, fingering and cavitation instabilities accepted in JMPS.

May 2017: Prof. Zhao has been granted tenure by MIT. Congratulations! MIT News.

May 2017: SAMs Lab and collaborators' paper on design and modeling of hygroscopic bio-hybrid actuators and devices accepted in Science Advances. Congratulations!

March 2017: Xinyue, Hyunwoo, Shaoting and collaborators' paper on design and modeling of stretchable living devices accepted in PNAS. Congratulations! News. MIT report. MIT MechE Front page.

February 2017: Hyunwoo, Shaoting and coauthors' paper on hydrogel actuators and robots accepted in Nature Communications. Congratulations! News. MIT report. Video.

February 2017: Shaoting and collaborators' paper on constitutive modeling of viscoelastic hydrogels accepted in JMPS. Congratulations!  

February 2017: Shaoting and coauthors' paper on strong, tough, stretchable and self-adhesive protein hydrogels accepted in Advanced Materials. Congratulations!

Before 2017


2016/11: Shaoting, Teng, Hyunwoo and collaborators discovered a new mode of fringe instability that has significant implications for soft adhesives and joints and published in Soft Matter. Congratulations!

2016/09: Xinyue, Hyunwoo and collaborators developed the world's first stretchable hydrogel optical fiber published in Advanced Materials. The work was reported by MIT spotlightMIT NewsFox News. Congratulations!

2016/07: German's picture on Hydrogel Microfluidics was futured in Seeing Science! Congratulations!

2016/06: SAMs Lab team, Hyunwoo, Teng, German and Xinyue's work on “Tough Synthetic Skin" published in Nature Communications and reported by MIT spotlight,MIT NewsBoston Magazine, CCTV! Congratulations!

2016/01: German passed the PhD qualification exam in MIT PPSM, and Shaoting passed the PhD qualification exam MIT MechE! Good job, Guys!

2015/12: SAMs Lab team Shaoting, Hyunwoo, Teng, German and Hyunwoo's paper on “Stretchable Hydrogel Electronics and Devices" was accepted for publication on Advanced Materials! Congratulations! The work was featured as MIT Spotlight and selected as the front page of MIT website, and reported by NBC News,  Boston HeraldNY City News. Technology Review higlighted our work on Stretchable Hydrogel Electronics.

2015/12: SAMs Lab team Hyunwoo, Teng, Shaoting and German's paper on “Tong bonding of hydrogels to diverse nonporous surfaces" was accepted for publication on Nature Materials! Congratulations! The work was reported by ForbesVice.

2015/12: Prof. Xuanhe Zhao was named the recipient of the 2015 Extreme Mechanics Letters (EML) Young Investigator Award for a paper entitled, “Predicting fracture energies and crack-tip fields of soft tough materials“.

2015/11: Prof. Zhao co-authored a paper on “Void-forming hydrogels" accepted for publication on Nature Materials!

2015/11: Shaoting Lin was selected to receive the Den Hartog Travel Award in Mechanics from Department of Mechanical Engineering, MIT! Congratulations, Shaoting!

2015/07: Prof. Zhao was appointed as the Robert N. Noyce Career Development Professor at MIT.

2015:07: Prof. Zhao was appointed to be an Associate Editor-in-Chief for Acta Mechanica Sinica (AMS).

2015/07: Prof. Zhao was invited to join the editorial board of Nature Scientific Reports.

2015/06: Qiming Wang, a former PhD and postdoc fellow of SAMs Lab, will join CEE USC as an assistant professor in Aug 2015. Congratulations, Prof. Wang! Teng Zhang, a postdoc fellow of SAMs Lab, will join MAE Syracuse as an assistant professor in Jan 2016. Congratulations, Prof. Zhang! SAMs Lab are so proud of you guys!

2015/05: Sungming, Dalton, Shaoting's work on 3D printing tough hydrogels published in Advanced Materials. The work was reported by MIT News and many other public media. Congratulations, guys!  

2015/04: Dr. Teng Zhang won the the NSF McMat2015 Travel Award. The award will support Teng to present his results at ASME McMat2015. Congratulations Teng!

2015/04: SAMs Lab Team, Teng Zhang, Shaoting Lin and Hyunwoo Yuk gave an invited graduate student seminar at UConn! Enjoy the road trip, guys!

2015/01: Prof. Xuanhe Zhao was selected to receive the Journal of Applied Mechanics Award in 2015 for his paper with Dr. Qiming Wang “Phase Diagrams of Instabilities in Compressed Film-Substrate Systems“.

2015/01: Prof. Xuanhe Zhao's paper “Multi-scale Multi-mechanism Design of Tough Hydrogels: Building Dissipation into Stretchy Networks" is among the 2014's most accessed Soft Matter articles.

2014/12: Dr. Qiming Wang won the Silver MRS graduate student award at the Fall 2014 Materials Research Society meeting. The title of his award presentation is “Cephalopod-inspired Design of Electro-mechano-chemically Responsive Elastomers for On-demand Fluorescent Patterning“.

2014/12: Dr. Jianfeng Zang won the Best Poster Award at the Fall 2014 Materials Research Society meeting. The title of his winning poster is “Self-Organizesd Origami of Large-Area Graphene and Graphene Papers Enables On-Demand Multifunctionalities".

2014/10: Dr. Qiming Wang published “Cephalopod-inspired Design of Electro-mechano-chemically Responsive Elastomers for On-demand Fluorescent Patterning" on Nature Communications. The work was reported by  Nature NewsWashington PostWall Street JournalThe SlateMIT Featured NewsMIT Today's Spotlight.

2014/08: Prof. Xuanhe Zhao was awarded the d'Arbeloff Career Development Chair from MIT.

2014/08: Dr. Gerard-Philippe ZEHIL began his new position as tenure-track assistant professor at Notre Dame University, in Lebanon. Congratulations, Gerard!

2014/07: Qiming Wang successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled “active surfaces and interfaces of soft materials". The committee were greatly impressed by the depth and breadth of Qiming's thesis and his extraordinary publication and award records. Qiming will join MIT as a postdoctoral fellow. Congratulations, Dr. Wang!

2014/06: Prof. Xuanhe Zhao has published a new paper entitled “Ultrasound-triggered disruption and self-healing of reversibly-crosslinked hydrogels for drug delivery and enhanced chemotherapy" on Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

2014/05: Dr Changyong Cao has won the Best Poster Award at the The 6th Annual Triangle Soft Matter Workshop! Changyong is also the Best Poster Award winner at The 5th Annual Triangle Soft Matter Workshop in 2013. Good job, Changyong!

2014/04: Mr. Ben Hightower has won the Stanford Graduate Fellowship with admission into the PhD program in Department of Mechanical EngineeringStanford University. Ben was an REU student at SMAs Lab in summars of 2012 and 2013. Congratulations, Ben!

2014/04: Prof Xuanhe Zhao has won the 2014 Young Investigator Program (YIP) Award from Office of Naval Research. Congratulations, Xuanhe!

2014/04: Dr Jianfeng Zang has won the the Kewaunee Postdoctoral Achievement Award from Center for Biomolecular and Tissue Engineering (CBTE). Congratulations, Jianfeng!

2014/03: Dr Changyong Cao's paper “Harnessing Localized Ridges for High-Aspect-Ratio Hierarchical Patterns with Dynamic Tunability and Multifunctionality" has been selected as Cover of Advanced Materials. Congratulations, Changyong!

2013/12: Dr Xuanhe Zhao's paper “Composite three-dimensional woven scaffolds with interpenetrating network hydrogels to create functional synthetic articular cartilage" has been selected as Cover of Advanced Functional Materials, and peported by Duke TodayPratt NewsR&D MagazinePhysOrg.

2013/11: Dr Changyong Cao won the 2013 Mahato Memorial Image Contest first place with his impressive image of Morphology of Crumpled Graphene Paper! Congratulations, Changyong!

2013/10: Mr Qiming Wang won the Haythornthwaite Foundation Student Travel Award from ASME Applied Mechanics Division. The award will support Qiming to present his research results at ASME 2013 International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition in San Diego, California. Good job, Qiming!

2013/09: Dr Changyong Cao received the Best Visualization & Images of Poster Award at 2013 MEMS retreat. Congratulations Changyong!

2013/07: Dr Xuanhe Zhao gave an invited talk entiltled “Harnessing Instabilities on Hard/Soft Active Material Interfaces" at the 2013 Gordon Research Conference on Science of Adhesion. Congratulations, Xuanhe!

2013/05: Mr. Changyong Cao has won the Best Poster Award (2nd place) at 5th Annual Triangle Soft Matter Workshop. Congratulations, Changyong!

2013/04: Mr. Changyong Cao has won the Travel Award for participating The 12th U.S. National Congress on Computational Mechanics. Congratulations, Changyong!

2013/04: Mr Qiming Wang has won the the Kewaunee Student Achievement Award from Center for Biomolecular and Tissue Engineering (CBTE). Good job, Qiming!

2013/03: Mr Qiming Wang has won the NSF-PACAM fellowship to support his travel to 2013 PACAM conference. Congratulations, Qiming!

2013/01: Dr Jianfeng Zang has published a paper entitled “Multifunctionality and Control of the Crumpling and Unfolding of Large-Area Graphene" on Nature Materials. The work has been Selected as Top 10 Uses for the World's Strongest Material by Discovery News. Congratulations, Jianfeng!

2013/01: Mr Qiming Wang has published a paper entitled “Bioinspired Surfaces with Dynamic Topography for Active Control of Biofouling" on Advanced Materials.

2012/12: Dr Xuanhe Zhao has won the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from Mechanics of Materials Program of National Science Foundation (NSF).

2012/11: Dr Xuanhe Zhao has won the Early Career Researchers Award from AVS Biomaterial Interfaces Division.

2012/10: Dr Xuanhe Zhao and Dr John Dolbow have won an award from Materials and Surface Engineering Program of National Science Foundation (NSF) to support their development of Transformative Skin.

2012/10: Mr Qiming Wang has published a paper entitled “Bursting Drops in Solid Dielectrics Caused by High Voltages" on Nature Communications. The work has been reported by MRS Materials 360 and Physics Today. Congratulations, Qiming!

2012/09: Dr Xuanhe Zhao and co-authors has published a paper entitled “Highly stretchable and tough hydrogels" on Nature. The work has been featured by Nature News.

2012/04: Mr Qiming Wang has published a paper entitled “Dynamic Electrostatic Lithography: Multiscale On-demand Patterning on Large-Area Curved Surfaces" Advanced Materials. The work has been selected as Advanced Materials Frontispiece and reported by BBC Focus Magzine and MRS Materials 360.

2011/11: Dr Xuanhe Zhao has been elected to be the secretary of ASME Technical Committee on Soft Materials.

2011/11: Mr Lin Zhang published a paper entitled “Mechanical Constraints Enhance Electrical Energy Densities of Soft Dielectrics" on Applied Physics Letters. The work has been reported by NSF NewsDuke TodayScience DailyPhysOrgEScience and Pratt News.

2011/11: Mr Qiming Wang has been selected by the Executive Committee of the ASME Applied Mechanics Division as the winner of the Second Place in the 2010 ASME AMD Student Paper Competition. Congratulations, Qiming!

2011/11: Dr Xuanhe Zhao has been selected by the Executive Committee of the ASME Applied Mechanics Division to receive the Haythornthwaite Research Initiation Grant. The co-recipients are Dr Dennis Kochmann from the California Institute of Technology and Dr Christian Franck from Brown University.

2011/10: Mr Qiming Wang has been selected to receive the IMECE 2011 Student travel award to present his work at ASME 2011 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition. Congratulations, Qiming!

2011/10: Mr Qiming Wang has been selected to receive the Best graduate student poster awards 1st Prize at Duke MEMS Graduate Student Retreat. Congratulations, Qiming!

2011/10: Mr Qing Tu has been selected to give one of the four student podium presentations at Duke MEMS Graduate Student Retreat. Qing is a first year PhD student at SAMs Lab. Congratulations, Qing!

2011/09: Ms Evgenia (Jenny) Madorsky wins the SMIF Undergraduate User Program to support her research at Duke SMIF and SAMs Lab. Congratulations, Jenny!

2011/08: Mr Anirudh Mohan wins the Donald Alstadt Fund Award to support his research at Duke SMIF and SAMs Lab. Congratulations, Ani! The Donald Alstadt Fund will provide Ani $500 per month for the utility fee of Duke SMIF.

2011/03: Mr Qiming Wang published a paper entitled “Creasing to Cratering instability in polymers under ultrahigh electric fields" on Physical Review Letters. The paper has been reported by Science DailyPhysOrgR&D MagzineECNmagDuke News, and Pratt News. Congratulations, Qiming!

2010/01: Mr Qiming Wang, a first-year PhDstudent, was invited to give a presentation at the MEMS Graduate Student Seminar, which is usually given by graduate students at their third or fourth year. Congratulations, Qiming!

2010/12: Dr Xuanhe Zhao has published a paper entitled “Active Scaffolds for On-demand Drug and Cell Delivery" on PNAS. The paper has been selected as Research highlightby Nature, Research highlght by PNAS, Report in R&D Magzine, Report in PhysOrg, Report in Nanowerk, Report in ECNmag, Report in Harvard Gazette, Report in Harvard SEAS News, Report in Duke Pratt News, and Report in Duke MEMS News. Congratulations, Xuanhe!

2010/10: Mr Qiming Wang was selected to give one of the four student podium presentations at MEMS graduate student retreat. Congratulations, Qiming!

2010/10: Mr Mukarram Tahir won the Lord Foundation award for Undergaduate Research Ultizing SMIF. Congratulations, Mukarram!