Yong Wang
Pennsylvania State University, PA·Biomedical Engineering
Aptamers are short strands of DNA or RNA that fold into shapes able to grip a specific target molecule tightly. They can act as drugs or as molecular "handles" that carry other cargo.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Chemistry
Engineering
- Topics
nucleic acid aptamers
aptamer selection
aptamer truncation
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through May 2028
What they work on
- 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.
- Truncate selected aptamers to their essential binding region while keeping high affinity and specificity, producing compact candidates for therapy.
- Test microneedle patches, arrays of tiny skin-piercing needles, for local delivery of aptamers that counter inflammatory cytokines in an animal model of inflammation.
- Design and evaluate bispecific aptamers that attach non-covalently to collagen while holding growth factors, so existing biomaterials can be loaded without changing how they are made.
- Measure growth factor loading and sustained release from aptamer-functionalized collagen, then test local growth factor delivery in living animals.
More about the research
Uses include cancer therapy, biosensing, regenerative medicine and controlling inflammation. Two hurdles limit them. Finding aptamers that bind strongly and selectively is hard, and so is delivering them, or the drugs they hold, to the right place for the right time. Both of the lab's projects address these hurdles. One builds a better way to discover aptamers and deliver them. The other uses aptamers to load healing proteins into existing biomaterials.
Why it matters
Better ways to find and deliver aptamers could produce new nucleic acid drugs for immune disorders. Locally applied microneedle treatments could, for example, block inflammatory cytokines at a defined site. Aptamer-loaded collagen could deliver growth factors steadily at lower doses for patients with tissue loss or damage, avoiding the toxicity of high-dose release. The same attachment strategy may also help in bioimaging, biosensing and cell engineering.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Yi Xiao
North Carolina State University, NC·Chemistry
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.
Mohamadmahdi Samandari
Old Dominion University, VA·Biomedical Engineering
Characterize microneedle-like gelatin drug depots that are printed directly inside a defect, and measure how quickly they release drugs in laboratory experiments.
Xingcheng Lin
North Carolina State University, NC·Biophysics·Early-career
Develop a physics-informed AI model that predicts how strongly proteins bind specific DNA or RNA sequences, combining sequence, structure and dynamics so it stays accurate when experimental training data are sparse.
The school
Pennsylvania State University: 60 labs on PI Pages, $1.3B a year on research, 743 research doctorates a year.
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