Junfei Xia

Area of research

Molecular Biology · Biomedical Engineering

Research interest

Research topics from publications: Neural patterning of human induced pluripotent stem cells in 3-D cultures for studying biomolecule-directed differential cellular responses; Asymmetric Biodegradable Microdevices for Cell-Borne Drug Delivery; Enhanced Radiation Therapy with Multilayer Microdisks Containing Radiosensitizing Gold Nanoparticles; Facile functionalization and assembly of live cells with microcontact-printed polymeric biomaterials; Gold nanoparticle-packed microdisks for multiplex Raman labelling of cells; Catalase-Laden Microdevices for Cell-Mediated Enzyme Delivery; Versatile Surface Micropatterning and Functionalization Enabled by Microcontact Printing of Poly(4-aminostyrene); Single cell patterning for high throughput sub-cellular toxicity assay; A paper indicator for triple-modality sensing of nitrite based on colorimetric assay, Raman spectroscopy, and electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy; Fabrication of carbon nanotube-laden microdevices for Raman labeling of macrophages. Representative work: Use of live cells as carriers for drug-laden particulate structures possesses unique advantages for drug delivery. In this work, we report on the development of a novel type of particulate structures called microdevices for cell-borne drug delivery. The microdevices were fabricated by soft lithography with a disklike shape. Each microdevice was composed of a layer of biodegradable thermoplastic such as poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid). One face of the thermoplastic layer was covalently grafted with a cell-adhesive polyelectrolyte such as poly-l-lysine. This asymmetric structure allowed the microdevices to bind to live cells through bulk mixing without causing cell aggregation. Moreover, the cel A challenge of X-ray radiation therapy is that high dose X-rays at therapeutic conditions damage normal cells. This paper describes the use of gold nanoparticle-loaded multilayer microdisks to enhance X-ray radiation therapy, where each microdisk contains over 10(5) radiosensitizing nanoparticles. The microdisks are attached on cell membranes through electrostatic interaction. Upon X-ray irradiation, more photoelectrons and Auger electrons are generated in the vicinity of the nanoparticles, which cause water ionization and lead to the formation of free radicals that damage the DNA of adjacent cancer cells. By attaching a large amount of gold nanoparticles

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