Shaoqin 'Sarah' Gong, PhD

Position title: Vilas Distinguished Professor and Advancing Vision Science Chair Professor

Email: sgong@engr.wisc.edu

Phone: 608-890-3463

Organ System/Disease Focus:
brain diseases, eye diseases, vascular diseases, and also cancers as well as antimicrobial applications
Aligned Research Focus:
Nanobiomaterials, nanomedicine, drug delivery, tissue engineering, biosensors
Shaoqin Gong headshot

Pubmed

More information:
Research Description:

Our research focuses on the design, synthesis/fabrication, and characterization of novel biomaterials, particularly nanobiomaterials, for various biomedical applications including drug delivery, tissue engineering scaffolding materials, and biosensors.

We are developing various types of multifunctional nanoplatforms (e.g., unimolecular micelles, polymer micelles and vesicles, and functionalized inorganic nanoparticles) in order to deliver therapeutic drugs and imaging contrast agents more specifically to the targeted/diseased tissues (e.g., cancers and vascular diseases), thereby greatly enhancing the efficacy of both diagnosis and therapy. We are also developing biodegradable hydrogels and polymeric particles for tissue engineering scaffolding applications. In addition, we have developed a number of biosensors exhibiting high sensitivity and specificity using functionalized nanoparticles such as graphene, gold, and mesoporous silica.

Selected References:
  1. Ye, M., Zhao, Y., Wang, Y., Xie, R., Tong, Y., Sauer, J.D., and Gong, S.*, NAD(H)-Loaded Nanoparticles for Efficient Sepsis Therapy via Modulating Immune and Vascular Homeostasis, Nature Nanotechnology, 2022. Accepted.
  2. Xie, R., Wang, X., Wang, Y., Ye, M., Zhao, Y., Yandell, B.S., and Gong, S.*, “pH-Responsive Polymer Nanoparticles for Efficient Delivery of Cas9 Ribonucleoprotein With or Without Donor DNA”, Advanced Materials, 2110618,
  3. Ye, M., Zhao, Y., Wang, Y., Zhao, M., Yodsanit, N., Xie, R., Andes, D., and Gong, S.*,A dual-responsive antibiotic-loaded nanoparticle specifically binds pathogens and overcomes antimicrobial-resistant infections,” Advanced Materials, 2006772,
  4. Ye, M., Zhao, Y., Wang, Y., Yodsanit, N., Xie, R., and Gong, S.*,pH-Responsive Polymer-Drug Conjugate: An Effective Strategy to Combat the Antimicrobial Resistance,” Advanced Functional Materials, 2002655, 2020.
  5. Chen, G., Abdeen, A., Wang, Y., Shahit, P.K., Robertson, S., Xie, R., Suzuki, M., Pattnaik R., Saha, K.*, and Gong, S.*, “A Biodegradable Nanocapsule Delivers a Cas9 Ribonucleoprotein Complex for in vivo Genome Editing,” Nature Nanotechnology,14, 974–980, 2019.
  6. Patel, R.B., Ye, M., Carlson P.M., Jaquish, A., Zangl, L., Ma, B., Wang, Y., Arthur, I., Xie, R., Brown, R., Wang, X., Sriamaneni, R., Kim, K., Gong, S.*, and Morris, Z.S.*, “Development of an in situ Cancer Vaccine via Combinational Radiation and Bacterial Membrane Coated Nanoparticles,” Advanced Materials, 31, 1902626, 2019.
  7. Jung H., Phillips M.J., Lee, J., Xie, R., Ludwig, A.L., Chen, G., Zheng, Q., Kim, T.J., Zhang, H., Barney, P., Min, J., Barlow, K., Gong, S.*, Gamm, D.M.*, and Ma, Z.*, “Three-Dimensional Micro-Structured Scaffolds to Support Photoreceptor Polarization and Maturation,” Advanced Materials, 30 (39), 1803550, 2018.
  8. Liu, F., Ma, F., Wang, Y., Hao, L., Zeng, H., Jia, C., Wang, Y., Liu, P., Ong, I., Li, B., Chen, G., Jiang, J., Gong, S.*, Li, L.*, and Xu, W.*, “PKM2 Methylation by CARM1 Activates Aerobic Glycolysis to Promote Tumorigenesis,” Nature Cell Biology, 19 (11), 1358–1370, 2017. DOI: 10.1038/ncb3630
  9. Brinkman, A., Chen, G., Wang, Y., Hedman, C.J., Sherer, N.M., Havighurst, T.C., Gong, S.*, and Xu, W.*, “Aminoflavone-Loaded EGFR-Targeted Unimolecular Micelle Nanoparticles Exhibit Anti-Cancer Effects in Triple Negative Breast Cancer,” Biomaterials, 101, 20–31, 2016.
  10. Jung, Y., Chang, T., Zhang, H., Yao, C. Zheng, Q., Yang, V., Mi, H., Kim, M., Cho, S., Park, D., Jiang, H., Lee, J., Qiu, Y., Cai, Z., Gong, S.*, and Ma, Z.*, “High-Perfor­mance Flexible Electronics Based on Biodegradable Cellulose Nanofibril Paper,” Nature Communication, 6 (7170), 2015.