Current Research

I am currently working in the lab of Dr. Yubing Xie, who spearheaded the first stem cell-nanobiotechnology lab at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering. Her interdisciplinary research focus on understanding normal and diseased tissue formation, developing diseased models and  therapeutics for cancer metastasis, obesity and eye diseases. Her specialty in micro-/nanofabrication, tissue engineering and stem cel technology allowed her to write and publish The Nanobiotechnology Handbook.

Undergraduate Research

City of Hope, National Cancer Institute
Eugene and Ruth Roberts Summer Research Intern, 2012
I joined the neuroscience lab of Dr. Karen Aboody in the summer of 2012. Her interest is in translation research involving neural stem cells (NSCs) and glioma. NSCs possess an inherent migratory potential toward malignant glioma; making them promising vehicles for the targeted delivery of therapeutic genes to disseminated glioma cells. Working with her graduate student Monika Polewski, I sought to explain the mechanism underlying the unique ability of NSCs to "home in" on tumor cells by examining the role that chemokines play in regulating stem/progenitor cell trafficking. The clarification of this process will allow follow-up experiments to enhance the migration and tumor targeting capacities of NSCs and potentially develop more effective anti-glioma therapies. 

Project: The effect of chemotaxis on the migration of HB1.F3 neural stem cells toward glioma
National Science Foundation, Auburn University
NSF REU Fellow, 2011
I had the pleasure of working with Dr. Elizabeth Lipke and Aaron Seeto (PhD Candidate) from the Chemical Engineering Department at Auburn University. My project sought to understand the mechanism by which endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) contribute to vascular repair. More specifically, we evaluated the effects of adhesion peptides covalently attached to hydrogens, on the migration rate and rolling velocities of umbilical cord blood outgrowth endothelial colony forming cells, a subset of EPCs. For more information on this project, please refer to our article, Peptide-grafted poly(ethylene glycol) hydrogels support dynamic adhesion of endothelial progenitor cells, published in the Acta Biomaterialia journal.  

Project: Migration and rolling of EPCs on PEG-peptide copolymers
"Effect of Valproic Acid on the Glioma Targeting Ability of HB1.F3.CD Human Neural Stem Cells”, Tian Y., Polewski M., Najbauer J., Annala A., Aboody S.K. 2012 AIChE Annual Meeting, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Oct 2012

“Migration and Rolling of EPCs on PEG-peptide Copolymers”, Tian Y., Seeto
A., and Lipke E. Annual Biomedical Engineering Society Meeting, Hartford, Connecticut, October 2011

Undergraduate Engineering Project

Meet Bond, Robo Bond. 
He is a highly trained "bomb disarming" robot, as well as the final project for my Freshman engineering class. He was built and programed to carry out specific instructions via the LEGO Mindstorm kit. I can't recall much technical details regarding the project (it was 4 years ago), but I do remember having a great time editing this video, including sound and special effects. 

Other skills

Language: Mandarin, EnglishGraphic Design: Adobe (Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Dreamweaver)
3D Modeling/Animation: Maya, 3D Max, AutoCAD
Simulation: COMSOL Multiphysics, MATLAB, ASPEN, Witness