Our research primarily focuses on the interface between biomaterials and biophysics, operating at the cellular and protein levels. We have a particular interest in designing and synthesizing bio-inspired, bio-functional, and bio-mimetic soft materials for applications in engineering and biomedicine. In addition to practical materials design, our objectives include gaining a deeper fundamental understanding of the sequence-structure-activity relationship of these materials. We achieve this through a combination of computational and experimental approaches. Currently, our research topics include:

• • Smart and tough hydrogels

  • Biofunctional polymers

  • Functional or disease-related proteins

  • Molecular simulations and machine learning of materials

• D day (04/2024): Congratulation to Dr. Yijing Tang

• Award (12/2023): Congratulations to Yijing Tang for receiving the Chemstress Award, the top honor for graduate students in the college. 

Yijing is the 9th recipient of this prestigious award within our laboratory.

• Highlight (10/2023): Dr. Zheng has achieved recognition on Stanford University's 2023 list of the World's Top 2% Scientists, appearing in both the career-long data and the single-year data for 2022.

Notably, he holds the top 1 ranking in the single-year data for 2022 at the University of Akron.

• Fellow (08/2023): Dr. Zheng was elected as a Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry.