News

Dr Chengchen Zhang receive the funding from the Royal Society as the lead PI for developing Ga based antimicrobials and its validation on infection models.  Thanks for the funding support from the Royal Society!

Co-I: Dr Ann Na Cho from the University of Sydney, AU. 

The IfLS Future Diagnostics symposium: Diagnostic innovation – future technology and translational pathways, was held at University of Southampton Science Park on 1 July, co-led by Dr Chengchen Zhang (Other co-leaders: Dr Alexander Edwards, Dr Hannah Schiff).  

The event celebrated interdisciplinary research and innovation in clinical diagnostics, connecting 60 colleagues from universities, the NHS and industry to foster knowledge exchange and opportunities for collaboration in this exciting field.

Congratulations to Dr Chengchen Zhang for being selected as 1 of the 24 KERC-funded EU researchers to attend the Korea-EU Horizon Europe Researchers Networking Forum on Advanced Biotechnology, taking place in Brussels, Belgium.

https://k-erc.eu/2025/05/horizon-europe-category/24560/ 

Dr Chengchen Zhang has received the Wessex Medical Innovation Fund from the Wessex Medical Trust to support a  smartphone-based biosensing platform currently developing in the group. 

Our paper "An Off-Chip Platform for On-Demand, Single-Target Encapsulation for Ultrasensitive Biomarker Detection" has been accepted by Biosensors and Bioelectronics!

Yuxin Zhang, Jiahao Zheng, Bayinqiaoge, Tim Cole, Chengchen Zhang*, Yi Wang*, and Shi-Yang Tang*, "An Off-Chip Platform for On-Demand, Single-Target Encapsulation for Ultrasensitive Biomarker Detection". Biosensors and Bioelectronics  (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bios.2025.117134 )

Our paper "Hairpin-locker mediated CRISPR/Cas tandem system for ultrasensitive detection of DNA without pre-amplification" has been accepted by Microchemical Journal!

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.microc.2025.113025  

Dr Yunshu Ma received fully-funded grant to visit our group as a Visiting Scholar and joined us in Oct 2024. Dr Ma is an Associate Professor from the School of Pharmacy in the Xuzhou Medical University, China.

Dr Chengchen Zhang gave a talk at the BioMed Eng24, London, UK.

Our paper, "Composites from Amyloid Fibrils and Liquid Metals," has been accepted by Advanced Functional Materials! 

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/adfm.202405918 

Our paper, "Point-of-care testing of Procalcitonin using lateral flow assay," has been accepted by 2024 IEEE EMBC.

DOI: 10.1109/EMBC53108.2024.10782080 

Dr. Chengchen Zhang represented the Digital Health and Biomedical Engineering group and introduced our new Biomedical Engineering program to prospective students in the "Which Engineering" video, produced by the marketing team at the University of Southampton.

Mr Bayinqiaoge received PhD scholarship and joined our group in June 2024!

Dr Chengchen Zhang received 2024 ECS Pump-Priming Fund from the School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, UK.

Dr Chengchen Zhang received the standard Royal Society Research Grant as the solo PI! This is her first successful research grant, marking a significant milestone in her academic journey.

Dr Chengchen Zhang conducted her inaugural lecture as a lecturer!

Dr. Chengchen Zhang has embarked on a new academic journey as a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Digital Health & Biomedical Engineering (DHBE) at the School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS), University of Southampton, UK.

Dr Chengchen Zhang joined Prof. Ewa Goldys's group as a Postdoctoral Research Associate (November 2022 - July 2023), focusing on the development of CRISPR/Cas-powered point-of-care biosensors.

(Images sourced from:

https://nanobiophotounsw.wordpress.com/2023/07/28/farewell-dr-chengchen-zhang/)

Dr Chengchen Zhang received her PhD from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, Australia, under the supervision of Prof. Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh. The image captures the moment she received her PhD completion letter in November 2022, with the degree officially conferred in December 2022.

Dr Zhang's PhD thesis focused on exploring the interactions between biological molecules and organic materials with gallium-based liquid metals for the design of therapeutics and sensors.