About

Chun Wang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Minnesota. His research focuses on developing polymeric materials for biomedical applications, with particular interest in the design and characterization of novel polymers to address unmet challenges in drug delivery. His work includes the development of 'Liquid Polymer Matrices' (LPM), a biodegradable polymer class that can be injected or implanted to enable easy loading and controlled release of bioactive cargos, including combination drugs, and is being used to deliver multi-component immunotherapeutics such as cancer vaccines with the aim of clinical translation. Additionally, he has developed 'Oncolytic Polymers', a new class of synthetic biomaterials with intrinsic and target-modulated toxicity toward cancer cells, and is investigating their anti-tumor mechanisms and efficacy in combination with other cancer therapies. His research also involves creating polymer wafers capable of delivering proteins and genes through the oral mucosa to improve mucosal vaccination against infectious diseases. Chun Wang's background includes a BS in Chemistry from Nankai University, China, an MS and PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Utah, and postdoctoral training at MIT supported by the NIH. He has received numerous awards for his research, including the NSF CAREER Award and the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation Early Career Translational Research Award.

Research topics

• Crystallography
• Chemistry
• Materials science
• Composite material

Selected publications

• Sandwich-Architected Hybrid Organic Crystals with Humidity–Temperature Sensing and Cryogenic Photothermal Actuation

  Nano-Micro Letters · 2026-01-05 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  The growing demand for personalized health care, smart wearables, and advanced environmental monitoring has spurred the development of multifunctional materials that combine flexibility, environmental adaptability, and diverse functionalities. However, conventional materials often failed to integrate these attributes simultaneously, hindering their applicability in next-generation technologies. Here, we present an organic-inorganic hybrid crystalline material with a unique sandwich-like architecture, in which a flexible organic crystal core is encased by reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU). This strategic integration endows the material with fluorescence, cryogenic flexibility, and electrical conductivity, while also enabling dual sensing and actuation capabilities. The rGO layer facilitates real-time humidity (25-90% RH) and temperature (25-180 °C) sensing through environmental interactions, whereas the differential thermal expansion between TPU and the flexible crystal core drives efficient photothermal actuation at - 150 °C for advanced thermal regulation. The hybrid material exhibits stable performance under extreme conditions, making it a promising candidate for biomedical monitoring, flexible electronics, and energy applications. This work establishes hybrid crystalline materials as versatile and scalable platforms for addressing complex technological demands, paving the way for their application in next-generation multifunctional devices.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Dynamic performance of composite laminate wing beam structures of aeronautical engineering with complex geometrical profiles

  Aerospace Science and Technology · 2025-02-14 · 6 citations

  article1st author
  PublisherDOI

• The Effect of Grinding Wheel Shapes on Burr Formation and Fracture in Grinding Nickel-Based Superalloy Honeycomb Cores

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Identification of alkaline phosphatase as a putative biomarker of anti-NGF treatment-associated arthropathies: Machine learning-assisted analyses of clinical trial data

  Osteoarthritis and Cartilage Open · 2025-12-19

  articleOpen access

  Objective: Nerve growth factor (NGF) inhibitors have been shown to provide pain relief in patients with osteoarthritis but are associated with adjudicated arthropathies (AAs). Exploratory analyses were performed to identify whether peripheral biomarkers routinely collected in trials can predict AAs, independent of known clinical covariates. Methods: Clinical and biomarker data from seven phase 2/3 fasinumab trials were pooled, and 33 laboratory baseline and week 16 change variables were assessed. Individuals with AA were identified and propensity score matched 1:1 to non-AA controls, creating four unique sets of non-AA individuals. Random forest machine learning models were used. Variables with >30 % missing data were excluded. The training/validation set included 75 % of the available dataset; 10 % formed the working validation test set, and 15 % a held-back test set. Area under the curve of the receiving operating characteristic (AUROC) and ranked feature importance were assessed across models using peripheral biomarkers to predict AA vs non-AA individuals. Results: Of the final dataset (n = 11,490), 911 AA individuals were compared with four unique sets of non-AA individuals (n = 878-908). The AUROC was 0.51-0.57 for biomarkers at baseline and 0.54-0.62 for biomarker changes at week 16. Change in alkaline phosphatase (ALP) from baseline to week 16 was the only important variable identified consistently across models. ALP was also elevated by several points on average in individuals receiving fasinumab. Conclusion: Change in ALP (baseline to week 16) was associated with AA events after treatment with fasinumab. Other measured peripheral biomarkers were not linked with AA events.

  PublisherDOI

• Study on the dissolution and degradation patterns of cellulose in phosphonate-based ionic liquids and the construction of ternary phase diagrams

  International Journal of Biological Macromolecules · 2025-06-16 · 2 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Introduction to Special Issue on Fluorescent Probes for Optical Imaging and Biosensing

  Journal of Innovative Optical Health Sciences · 2025-04-19

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• A modeling method for metro train braking system requirements

  2025-01-20

  articleSenior author

  Requirement analysis is the core step in requirements engineering. The traditional method of requirement analysis is usually carried out by customer, requirement analyst and other cooperative work, and repeated manual iteration. Based on the idea of model-based systems engineering (MBSE), taking the demand analysis of metro train braking system as an example, a top-down demand analysis method is proposed by using the forward design process, and a joint simulation platform is built by combining Unity3D and AMEsim. The key functional requirements and performance requirements are simulated and analyzed to verify the effectiveness and feasibility of the established requirement model, and then the requirement itemized model is managed and released to each subsystem. The results show that compared with the traditional design, the model established by this modeling method can improve the efficiency of system design and ensure the traceability of requirements. At the same time, the simulation analysis and verification of requirements improve the efficiency and accuracy of demand management.

  PublisherDOI

• Functional nanocellulose hydrogel with amino acid integration for enhanced Li/Fe separation in LiFePO4 batteries

  International Journal of Biological Macromolecules · 2025-01-17 · 3 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Tabletability Flip in Dry Granulated Systems

  Pharmaceutical Research · 2025-12-18

  articleOpen access

  PURPOSES: The tabletability flip phenomenon (TFP), where an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) with poorer tabletability exhibits better tabletability when formulated with excipients, has been well documented in direct compression systems. However, the impact of granulation on TFP remains unexplored. Hence, the purpose of this work was to investigate the occurrence and underlying mechanisms of TFP in dry-granulated formulations. METHODS: Acetaminophen (APAP) and ibuprofen (IBU) were used as model APIs since they exhibit TFP in non-granulated blends. Granules of each API were prepared at two porosity levels (9% and 19%) by controlling compaction pressure. Granules with and without varying levels of extragranular magnesium stearate (MgSt) were evaluated for tabletability, bonding area (BA), and bonding strength (BS). RESULTS: For the more porous granules (19% porosity), extensive fragmentation during compaction preserved TFP through the same mechanism observed in the pre-blends. In contrast, the less porous granules (9% porosity) remained largely unfragmented during compaction, allowing their intrinsic mechanical properties to govern the BA-BS interplay. Although APAP granules showed smaller BA due to lower deformability, the higher BS led to superior tabletability, thus maintaining TFP. The incorporation of ≥ 1% MgSt minimized BS difference between formulations, effectively eliminating TFP, since the softer IBU granules exhibited higher tabletability due to larger BA. CONCLUSION: These results demonstrated the applicability of the BA-BS framework in explaining TFP in granulated systems and highlight the importance of controlling granule porosity and MgSt levels to optimize tabletability in dry granulation processes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Step piston linear compressor for step piston type pulse tube refrigerator

  International Journal of Refrigeration · 2025-01-15 · 2 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Changquan Calvin Sun

  142 shared

• Sathyanarayana Reddy Perumalla

  University of Minnesota System

  26 shared

• Zhiping Li

  Baruch S. Blumberg Institute

  25 shared

• Sankar Addya

  Thomas Jefferson University

  25 shared

• Richard G. Pestell

  Albert Einstein College of Medicine

  25 shared

• Kongming Wu

  Huazhong University of Science and Technology

  25 shared

• Poul H. Sorensen

  25 shared

• Xuanmao Jiao

  Baruch S. Blumberg Institute

  25 shared

Labs

• Tissue Mechanics LaboratoryPI

Awards & honors

• Dow Corning Graduate Student Outstanding Research Award, Con…
• Capsugel Award for Innovative Aspects of Controlled Drug Rel…
• Individual National Research Service Award (postdoctoral), N…
• CAREER Award, National Science Foundation, 2006
• Early Career Translational Research Award, Wallace H. Coulte…