Yi Xiao
North Carolina State University, NC·Chemistry
Many drugs and body chemicals are small molecules whose levels change minute by minute, yet few tools can track them continuously inside a living body. One promising tool is the aptamer: a short strand of DNA or RNA that folds into a shape able to grab a specific target molecule.
- Fields
Chemistry
Biomedical Engineering
Biochemistry
- Topics
aptamers
Motif-SELEX
nucleic acid receptors
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Feb 2030
What they work on
- Develop NA-SELEX, an aptamer selection method that uses DNA-cutting nucleases so neither target nor library sits on a solid support, to find aptamers that bind tightly and stay bound under body-like conditions.
- Create Motif-SELEX, an 'aptamer maturation' method that explores many sequence variants of an existing aptamer to reshape its binding site and raise its affinity and specificity for small-molecule targets.
- Convert the improved aptamers into real-time biosensors that measure several chemically diverse, low-concentration small molecules in living animals.
- Isolate, characterize and engineer aptamers that bind fentanyl, the primary opioid tied to opioid use disorder, for use in brain-implantable sensors.
- Build an implantable nanoporous electrochemical aptamer-based (nanoEAB) fentanyl sensor, test how a new surface coating's structure affects its lifetime in the body, and validate a wireless system in freely moving animals.
More about the research
Because aptamers can change shape when they bind, they can be built into sensors that report a target's concentration in real time. Their weakness is that they often bind too weakly or too unselectively to work in blood or brain tissue. The lab's projects tie together better ways to discover aptamers with implantable sensors that use them.
Why it matters
Sensors that track drugs and biomarkers continuously in the body could support therapeutic drug monitoring and personalized medicine. Measuring fentanyl in the brain could help researchers understand how opioids alter behavior, relevant to the millions of U.S. adults with opioid use disorder. The fentanyl sensors may also serve as a platform for wearable overdose alert systems or closed-loop delivery of naloxone, the overdose-reversal drug.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Yong Wang
Pennsylvania State University, PA·Biomedical Engineering
Develop a one-step, three-dimensional method to select aptamers, short DNA or RNA strands that bind targets tightly, inside a non-fouling macroporous hydrogel that resists unwanted sticking.
Hsin-Chih Yeh
University of Texas at Austin, TX·Biomedical Engineering
Develop live-cell imaging methods that show glycoRNAs, small RNAs carrying sugar chains on the cell surface, alongside their sugar-free RNA counterparts, to compare their abundance, location, membrane movement and trafficking.
Margaret J Lange
University of Missouri-Columbia, MO·Microbiology & Immunology
Identify new RNA aptamers, short structured nucleic acids selected for tight binding, that recognize additional HIV-1 capsid assembly forms, building toward a panel covering the lattice, hexamer and pentamer states.
The school
North Carolina State University: 40 labs on PI Pages, $717M a year on research, 603 research doctorates a year.
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