IMX Colloquium - Bioiontronics for biointerfaces and future medicine

Bioiontronics is an important interdisciplinary field emerging from a confluence of recent breakthroughs in iontronics and bioengineering. The fundamental task of bioiontronics is to promote communication with living matter through ions and biological molecules and thereby mediate the detection and modulation of biological activities. Bioiontronics can function at abiotic-biotic interfaces in an autonomous fashion or in integral, modular components of biomedical devices. In this talk, I will discuss the underlying mechanisms of bioiontronic devices and describe the challenges in their fabrication and application. I will then highlight the use of surfactant-supported assembly of freestanding microscale hydrogel droplets, termed dropletronics, to construct various ionic power sources, iontronic modules, circuits, and biointerfaces. Elevation of bioiontronics through a union of multidisciplinary skills will disrupt the medical landscape and stimulate opportunities in areas such as soft robotics and neuromorphic computing.

Bio: Yujia Zhang is an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Microengineering at the Institute of Electrical and Micro Engineering (IEM) at EPFL. His research thrusts include iontronic hybrid tissues and wearable/implantable bioelectronics for applications in biomedicine. Recently, he has pioneered the area of dropletronics, in which networks of microscale soft droplets function as versatile bioelectronic/bioiontronic devices.
Prior to his appointment, he obtained his B.Sc. in Electronics and Information Science and Technology from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2016. He later completed his PhD in biomedical engineering and MEMS/NEMS technology at the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and was a visiting scholar at Stony Brook University, USA. In 2021, Yujia joined the Bayley group at the University of Oxford, UK, and began postdoctoral research focused on developing multifunctional iontronic synthetic tissues for biotic interfaces and soft implants. In 2023, he became an independent early-career research fellow hosted in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Oxford.