Hongbao Xin

• Professor
• Professor at Jinan University

The rapid progresses in biological and biomedical applications with optical interfaces have motivated an ever-increasing demand for biocompatible and disposable photonic components. Generally, these biophotonic components are firstly integrated with biocompatible materials, and then interfaced with biological samples, such as living cells, for biol...

The orientation and shifting of individual carbon nanotubes are extremely important in the assembly of building blocks of nanodevices and in the development of one-dimensional materials for interdisciplinary applications. Here, we report an optical method that is capable of producing the controlled orientation and targeted shifting of single multiw...

Detecting and analyzing pathogenic bacteria in an effective and reliable manner is crucial for the diagnosis of acute bacterial infection and initial antibiotic therapy. However, the precise labeling and analysis of bacteria at the single-bacterium level are a technical challenge but very important to reveal important details about the heterogeneit...

Optical forces, generally arising from changes of field gradients or linear momentum carried by photons, form the basis for optical trapping and manipulation. Advances in optical forces help to reveal the nature of light–matter interactions, giving answers to a wide range of questions and solving problems across various disciplines, and are still y...

Bioinspired and biohybrid micromotors represent a revolution in microrobotic research and are playing an increasingly important role in biomedical applications. In particular, biological micromotors that are multifunctional and can perform complex tasks are in great demand. Here, we report living and multifunctional micromotors based on single cell...

Micro/nanorobots based on immune cells show great potential for addressing challenging biological and biomedical conditions. However, their powerful innate immune functions, particularly the phagocytosis capabilities, remain a big challenge to fully leverage with the current designs of immune cell-based microrobots. Herein, we report a light-powere...

Micro/nanorobots have shown great potential to execute different tasks in microenvironments due to their small size, high controllability and environmental adaptability. However, it is still challenging to precisely control the deformation and navigation of soft micro/nanorobots to better adapt to unstructured and complex surroundings. Here, we rep...

Precision colloidal patterning holds great promise in constructing customizable micro/nanostructures and functional frameworks, which showcases significant application values across various fields, from intelligent manufacturing to optoelectronic integration and biofabrication. Here, a direct 4D patterning method via adaptive opto‐thermal‐hydrodyna...

Neural stimulation and modulation at high spatial resolution are crucial for mediating neuronal signaling and plasticity, aiding in a better understanding of neuronal dysfunction and neurodegenerative diseases. However, developing a biocompatible and precisely controllable technique for accurate and effective stimulation and modulation of neurons a...

Large‐scale particle manipulation with single‐particle precision and further flexible patterning into functional structures is of huge potentials in many fields including bio‐optoelectronic sensing, colloidal lithography, and wearable devices. However, it is very challenging for the precision manipulation and flexible patterning of particles on com...

Micro/nanorobots hold exciting prospects for biomedical and even clinical applications due to their small size and high controllability. However, it is still a big challenge to maneuver micro/nanorobots into narrow spaces with high deformability and adaptability to perform complicated biomedical tasks. Here, we report a light-controlled soft bio-mi...

Artificial microswarms with a collective intelligence that can execute cooperative tasks will serve as intelligent micro/nanorobot systems for many biomedical and microengineering applications. However, it remains challenging to construct microswarms with 3D dynamic and reconfigurable structures that can execute complex spatiotemporal‐dependent tas...

Outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) are extracellular structures derived from the outer membrane of bacteria. They carry diverse cargos such as proteins, nucleic acids and enzymes, which are released by bacteria to communicate with each other and with host cells. Understanding the role of OMVs as carriers of signalling enzymes provides insights into int...

Contamination of nano-biothreats, such as viruses, mycoplasmas, and pathogenic bacteria, is widespread in cell cultures and greatly threatens many cell-based bio-analysis and biomanufacturing. However, non-invasive trapping and removal of such biothreats during cell culturing, particularly many precious cells, is of great challenge. Here, inspired...

Researchers have urged that community resilience be integrated in preparing for public emergencies to improve individuals’ resilience. This study explored Vietnamese refugees’ shared perspectives on their community resilience in the face of a natural disaster and factors that either facilitated or impeded their community resilience. Using ethnograp...

Intelligent Microswarms In article number 2200533, Yang Shi, Hongbao Xin, and colleagues proposed the light‐induced cold Marangoni flow (CMF) technique and applied it for photothermal damage‐free actuation of intelligent microrobotic swarms with strong universality and intelligent behaviors. The distinctive photothermal isolation capability of CMF...

Microswarms have shown great potential in biomedical applications at small scales due to their features of wireless actuation and collective microrobotic behaviors. However, actuation of microswarms with strong universality and intelligent biomimetic behaviors is always a great challenge. Here, photothermal damage‐free actuation of an intelligent m...

Contamination of nano-biothreats, such as viruses, mycoplasmas, and pathogenic bacteria, is widespread in cell cultures and greatly threats many cell-based biomanufacturing and therapeutics. However, non-invasive trapping and removal of such biothreats during cell culturing is of great challenge. Here, inspired by wake-riding effect, we report a bi...

Bio‐Micromotor Tweezers In article number 2111038, Hongbao Xin, Baojun Li, and co‐workers construct bio‐micromotor tweezers for noninvasive bio‐cargo delivery and precise therapy based on two optically trapped living microalgae cells. The rotating cells generate highly localized flow fields, which can trap and drive bio‐cargos along controllable tr...

Active and targeted bio-cargo delivery by micromotors holds exciting prospects in biomedical applications. However, such delivery still faces great challenges when implemented in bio-microenvironments with minimal invasiveness, flexible controllability, and full biocompatibility. Here, a noncontact delivery platform based on bio-micromotor tweezers...

The rapid development of biophotonics and biomedical sciences makes a high demand on photonic structures to be interfaced with biological systems that are capable of manipulating light at small scales for sensitive detection of biological signals and precise imaging of cellular structures. However, conventional photonic structures based on artifici...

Optical fiber tweezers, as a versatile tool for optical trapping and manipulation, have attracted much attention in cell trapping, manipulation, and detection. Particularly, assembly of living cells using optical fiber tweezes has become a significant attention. Advanced achievements have been made on the assembly of fully biocompatible photonic pr...

Bone defects remain a major threat to human health and bone tissue regeneration has become a prominent clinical demand worldwide. The combination of microRNA (miRNA) therapy with 3D printed scaffolds has always posed a challenge. It can mimic physiological bone healing processes, in which a biodegradable scaffold is gradually replaced by neo-tissue...

Optical manipulation and detection of nanoscale biospecimen, such as organic nanoparticles, biomolecules, bacterial viruses, and subcellular nanostructures, is crucial in numerous biomedical and biological applications. Traditional lens-based free-space techniques for optical manipulation and detection are limited by their bulky systems and the inh...

Biodegradable inorganic nanomaterials have opened new perspectives for cancer therapy due to their inherent anticancer activity. Black phosphorus nanosheets (BPs) with their unique bioactivity have recently been identified as promising cancer therapeutic agents but their application is hampered by the difficulty in surface functionalization. Herein...

Quantitative molecular analysis is usually based on spectrophotometric method using colorimetric assay. Conventional methods, however, rely on the directly uniform absorption of the sample under test, and the detection sensitivity is strictly limited by the length of the absorption cell at the millimeter scale. Here, we report a new methodology for...

In article number 1905568, Yao Zhang, Baojun Li, and co‐workers report a biocompatible biosensor and micromotor that are assembled with an in vivo red blood cell waveguide. The living biosensor is used for the diagnosis of pH‐related disorders of the blood; the waveguide can rotate as a micromotor and transport microparticles to the target region....

With great potential in intelligent sensing and actuating systems, biosensors and micromotors are expected to be powerful instruments for early diagnosis and drug delivery in precision medicine. However, it is difficult to ensure the synthetic biosensors and micromotors are compatible with biosystems because of their exogenous building blocks. Bioc...

Quantum biological electron transfer (ET) essentially involves in virtually all important biological processes such as photosynthesis, cellular respiration, DNA repair, cellular homeostasis, and cell death. However, there is no real-time imaging method to capture biological electron tunnelling in live cells to date. Here, we report a quantum biolog...

Optical nanoprobes, designed to emit or collect light in the close proximity of a sample, have been extensively used to sense and image at nanometer resolution. However, the available nanoprobes, constructed from artificial materials, are incompatible and invasive when interfacing with biological systems. In this work, we report a fully biocompatib...

Surface plasmons — light-induced oscillations of electrons at the surface of nanoplasmonic metallic nanoparticles or nanostructures — can be used in a wide range of applications. Such nanoplasmonic optical antennas can be interfaced with biological systems to answer diverse questions in life sciences and to solve problems in translational medicine....

An optical fiber serves as a versatile tool for optical trapping and manipulation owing to its many advantages over conventional optical tweezers, including ease of fabrication, compact configurations, flexible manipulation capabilities, ease of integration, and wide applicability. Here, we review recent progress in fiber-based optical trapping and...

In article number 1603418, Baojun Li and co-workers develop a single-bacterium labeling and analysis method. By optical connecting of a single bacterium with single upconversion nanoparticles which emits green light using an optical cotrapping method, single bacterium can be labeled and moved to designated locations in 3D, and the signal from the l...

Objectives: To examine the relationship between both individual and neighborhood level characteristics and non-fasting blood glucose levels.Study design: This study used a cross sectional design using data from the Community Initiative to Eliminate Stroke Program in NC (2004-2008). A total of 12,809 adults nested within 550 census block groups from...

Cell separation and delivery have recently gained significant attention in biological and biochemical studies. In thiswork, an optical method for separation and controllable delivery of cells by using an abruptly tapered fiber probe is reported. By launching a laser beam at the wavelength of 980 nm into the fiber, a mixture of cells with sizes of ~...

Branched photonic structures have served as paramount important components for nanophotonic integration and circuitry. However, these structures are generally constructed with photonic and plasmonic nanowires, which are nonbiomaterials and often need to be specially engineered to interface with cells and biological system. For bionanophotonics, pho...

The purpose of this paper is to explore and understand how a Bosnian refugee community perceives and responds to the potential risk of a natural disaster in order to identify tailored approaches to improve risk communication. This is a qualitative study. Participants resettled in St Louis, Missouri were identified through criterion and snowball sam...

Non-contact intracellular binding and controllable manipulation of chloroplasts in vivo was demonstrated using an optical fiber probe. Launching a 980-nm laser beam into a fiber, which was placed about 3μm above the surface of a living plant (Hydrilla verticillata) leaf, enabled stable binding of different numbers of chloroplasts, as well as their...

Flexible patterning of different cells into designated locations with direct cell–cell contact at single-cell patterning precision and control is of great importance, however challenging, for cell patterning. Here, an optical assembly method for patterning of different types of cells via direct cell–cell contact at single-cell patterning precision...

The dynamics and energy conversion of bacteria are strongly associated with bacterial activities, such as survival, spreading of bacterial diseases and their pathogenesis. Although different discoveries have been reported on trapped bacteria (i.e. immobilized bacteria), the investigation on the dynamics and energy conversion of motile bacteria in t...

This pilot case study describes foreign-trained former Montagnard refugee physicians’ practice experiences in Vietnam and their current community health worker and “ally” roles within the Montagnard refugee community. It highlights key features that facilitate cross-culturally responsive health care. We interviewed five Vietnam-trained former Monta...

We report a strategy for realizing precise orientation of single silver nanowire using two fiber probes. By launching a laser of 980 nm wavelength into the two fibers, single silver nanowire with a diameter of 600 nm and a length of 6.5 μm suspended in water was trapped and rotated by optical torque resulting from its interaction with optical field...

With the assistance of a particle-decorated fiber probe, optically controlled circling of particles was demonstrated using 3.14 μm diameter silica particles. The method is based on the temperature gradient and thermal convection when a laser beam of 980 nm (power: 108 mW) is injected into the fibre. Specific currents were created by decorating the...

A method for optical formation and controllable manipulation of particle and cell patterns using a tapered optical fiber is demonstrated. With a laser beam at 980-nm wavelength launched into the fiber, different sized silica particles were formed into particle patterns (both one-dimensional chains and two-dimensional arrays) with different particle...

An optical method for formation and controllable manipulation of particle and cell patterns is proposed. With a laser beam at 980 nm wavelength launched into a tapered optical fiber, different sized particles and cells are formed into particle/cell chains and arrays with controllable numbers in a highly organized manner. The formed patterns can be...

Study findings suggest that refugees are more vulnerable than the general population to mental disorders from disasters. This pilot study explored the nature of Vietnamese refugees' resilience to a potential natural disaster as a first step toward improving their disaster mental health. Interviews were conducted with 20 ethnic Vietnamese and Montag...

We report stable optical trapping and controlled manipulation of Escherichia coli cells in a microfluidic channel using an abruptly tapered optical fiber with 980-nm wavelength laser light launched. Stability of the trapping at different optical powers (10–70 mW) was demonstrated in fluids under different flow directions and velocities. The experim...

This work demonstrates an efficient technique for assembly and migration of nanoparticles by laser-induced vortex flows. The vortex flows were generated by launching a 150 mW laser beam into a fiber tip which was horizontally placed on polystyrene particles suspension surface. The assembly is based on pressure difference in vortex flows where flow...

The stable trapping and direct delivery of bacteria are very important in studying their nanoscopic biochemical processes. Here, we report the stable optical trapping and direct delivery of Escherichia coli in a microfluidic channel. By placing an optical nanofiber (NF, diameter: 600 nm) in the channel and directing a laser beam with a wavelength o...

Studies reveal that there exists much interaction and communication between bacterial cells, with parts of these social behaviors depending on cell-cell contacts. The cell-cell contact has proved to be crucial for determining various biochemical processes. However, for cell culture with relatively low cell concentration, it is difficult to precisel...

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Fluid flows with four vortices were simultaneously formed on water surface based on photothermal effect induced by a laser beam of 1.55 mu m wavelength. With the illumination of an optical power of 60 mW, the peak velocity of each vortex flow was reached to 1200 mu m/s. Influence of optical power and attack angle on the vortex flows has been invest...

Particle separation is of great importance for a wide range of applications, such as biochemistry and biomedicine, and has been demonstrated using various techniques. Generally, these techniques necessitate carefully microfabricated devices and the assistance of microfluidics, thus making the separation difficult to accomplish. Here, we report a fl...

The ability of manipulating mesoscopic objects with high precision and flexibility is extremely important for a wide variety of fields from physics, biochemistry, to biomedicine. Particularly, the ability of arranging particles/cells into desired patterns precisely is a challenge for numerous physical and biological applications. Here, we report a...

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This work provides an optofluidic particle extraction in a microfluidic channel using a multiple-defect decorated sub-microfiber by injecting a light of 532-nm-wavelength into it. Numerical analysis shows that effective extraction was resulted from the difference between the gradient force exerted on the target 3-μm-diameter polystyrene (PS) partic...

A fiber taper-based method is proposed for formation and targeted positioning of bubbles in water. By launching a laser of 1.55-μm wavelength with an optical power of over 20 mW into the fiber taper, a microbubble was formed at the taper tip. The mechanism of growth and decay of the microbubble was discussed. With the assistance of a moveable bare...

This work provides optical delivery and controllable multi-destination release of nanoparticles (NPs) using a defect-decorated optical nanofiber (NF) assisted by a barrier. The delivery and release was accurately controlled using different evanescent optical fields at different regions of the NF by changing the injected optical power. The NPs (poly...

A simple but highly efficient method for particles or bacteria trapping and removal from water is of great importance for local water purification, particularly, for sanitation. Here, we report a massive photothermal trapping and migration of dielectric particles (SiO2, 2.08-µm diameter) in water by using a tapered optical fiber (3.1-µm diameter fo...

The purpose of this article is to describe a 1-year (2008−2009) pilot intervention “Happy, Happy Community,” which aimed to understand and model an approach to promote mental health with a multiethnic adult refugee population. Refugee participants living in two local resettlement communities in a southeastern city of the United States received the...

Targeted drug delivery and controllable release are particularly beneficial in medical therapy. This work provides a demonstration of nanoparticles targeted delivery and controllable release using a defect-decorated optical nanofiber (NF). By using the NF, polystyrene particles (PSs) (713-nm diameter) suspended in water were successfully trapped, t...

The removal of dielectric particles and bacteria from water is an extremely important global issue, particularly, for drinking and sanitation. This work provides a demonstration of optical purification of water using an optical fiber-ring. The size of particles suspended in water for trapping is 2.08 μm in diameter and the wavelength of light used...

Purpose: To examine the extent to which the distribution of neighborhood disadvantage accounts for the variation in blood pressure after justifying its individual-level risk factors. Methods: Data from community screenings conducted as part of the Community Initiatives to Eliminate Stroke Project in NC (2004-2008) were used. A total of 19,261 adu...

The scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) makes public the reflective process of problem solving used by teachers to improve instructional strategies, classroom practices, or knowledge of learning environments. This presentation will introduce the history, theory, and practice of SoTL; explain its application in a variety of university classr...