CBM Seminar Series – Engineering Peptide Assembly for Mechanotransduction-Mediated Cell Reprogramming

The College of Biomedicine was honored to welcome Professor Ye ZHANG, Professor, Active Soft Matter Group, CAS Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, as a distinguished speaker in the CBM Seminar Series on 17 November 2025 (Monday). Professor Zhang is a prominent researcher in the field of bioinspired materials and mechanotransduction, with a multidisciplinary background spanning chemistry, soft matter physics, and cellular engineering. Her pioneering work integrates peptide-based supramolecular assembly design with cell biology to develop dynamic interfaces that regulate cell fate. She has published extensively in leading journals across materials science and bioengineering.

In her talk, titled “Engineering Peptide Assembly for Mechanotransduction-Mediated Cell Reprogramming”, Professor Zhang presented her team’s recent advances in constructing peptide-based nanostructured scaffolds that emulate the extracellular matrix (ECM) to direct cellular responses. By engineering ligand-presenting peptides that self-assemble into ECM-mimetic architectures, her group demonstrated how precise control over spatial configuration, mechanical cues, and receptor-binding motifs can activate mechanotransduction pathways via integrins and heparan sulfate proteoglycans (HSPGs). These designer materials successfully guided specific cell fate transitions, including stem cell differentiation and macrophage plasticity, highlighting their promise in regenerative medicine and immunoengineering.

The seminar generated enthusiastic discussion on the frontiers of cell-material interactions and underscored the transformative potential of supramolecular biomaterials in therapeutic development.