About

Wei Shen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on engineering biomaterials and utilizing these materials to investigate cell-microenvironment interactions and model diseases, with the ultimate goals of understanding, detecting, and curing human diseases. Her ongoing projects include developing topographically patterned material platforms to study Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) and Congenital Muscular Dystrophy (CMD), creating nanoparticle platforms for antiviral therapy, and designing oxygen-releasing materials for cell-based therapy. Dr. Shen's educational background includes a BS in Chemical Engineering from East China University of Science and Technology and a PhD in Chemical Engineering with a minor in biology from the California Institute of Technology, where she also completed postdoctoral training in biology.

Research topics

• Chemistry
• Materials science
• Organic chemistry
• Computer Science
• Nanotechnology
• Physics
• Composite material
• Biology
• Biomedical engineering
• Pulp and paper industry
• Optics

Selected publications

• Respirometry and Cell Viability Studies for Sustainable Polyesters and Their Hydrolysis Products

  ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering · 2021 · 30 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Chemistry
  • Organic chemistry

  Significant research effort has been directed toward the development of sustainable plastics that are high-performance, bioderived, and/or degrade into nontoxic byproducts in natural or engineered environments (i.e., industrial composting facilities). We report the low cytotoxicity of poly(γ-methyl-ε-caprolactone) (PMCL)-based materials and the hydrolysis product of PMCL, sodium 6-hydroxy-4-methylcaproate. The concentration of sodium 6-hydroxy-4-methylcaproate that leads to 50% cell death (TD50) is 179 mM, a value that is similar to that of the hydrolysis product of polycaprolactone and higher than that of the hydrolysis product of polylactide. We also report the degradability of two PMCL materials with different architectures (cross-linked and linear triblock polymers) under simulated industrial composting conditions. These materials reached high degrees of carbon mineralization (>85%) over the course of 120 days as monitored by CO2 evolution. Finally, we examined the industrial compostability of a new aromatic polyester, poly(salicylic methyl glycolide). This material reached 89% carbon mineralization after 120 days, an important finding given the recalcitrance toward degradation of ubiquitous aromatic polyesters.

  PublisherDOI

• Implantable and Degradable Thermoplastic Elastomer

  ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering · 2021 · 17 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Materials science
  • Composite material
  • Biomedical engineering

  -poly(lactide) (PLA-PβMδVL-PLA), a thermoplastic triblock poly(α-ester), has combined favorable properties of elasticity, biodegradability, and biocompatibility. This material exhibits excellent elastomeric properties in both dry and aqueous environments. The elongation at break is approximately 1000%, and stretched specimens completely recover to their original shape after force is removed. The material is degradable both in vitro and in vivo; it degrades more slowly than poly(glycerol sebacate) and more rapidly than poly(caprolactone) in vivo. Both the polymer and its degradation product show high cytocompatibility in vitro. The histopathological analysis of PLA-PβMδVL-PLA specimens implanted in the gluteal muscle of rats for 1, 4, and 8 weeks revealed similar tissue responses as compared with poly(glycerol sebacate) and poly(caprolactone) controls, two widely accepted implantable polymers, suggesting that PLA-PβMδVL-PLA can potentially be used as an implantable material with favorable in vivo biocompatibility. The thermoplastic nature allows this elastomer to be readily processed, as demonstrated by the facile fabrication of the substrates with topographical cues to enhance muscle cell alignment. These properties collectively make this polymer potentially highly valuable for applications such as medical devices and tissue engineering scaffolds.

  DOI

• Color‐Tunable Light‐up Bioorthogonal Probes for In Vivo Two‐Photon Fluorescence Imaging

  Chemistry - A European Journal · 2020 · 16 citations

  • Optics
  • Materials science
  • Chemistry

  Light-up bioorthogonal probes have attracted increasing attention recently due to their capability to directly image diverse biomolecules in living cells without washing steps. The development of bioorthogonal probes with excellent fluorescent properties suitable for in vivo imaging, such as long excitation/emission wavelength, high fluorescence turn-on ratio, and deep penetration, has been rarely reported. Herein, a series of azide-based light-up bioorthogonal probes with tunable colors based on a weak fluorescent 8-aminoquinoline (AQ) scaffold were designed and synthesized. The azido quinoline derivatives are able to induce large fluorescence enhancement (up to 1352-fold) after click reaction with alkynes. In addition, the probes could be engineered to exhibit excellent two-photon properties (δ=542 GM at 780 nm) after further introducing different styryl groups into the AQ scaffold. Subsequent detailed bioimaging experiments demonstrated that these versatile probes can be successfully used for live cell/zebrafish imaging without washing steps. Further in vivo two-photon imaging experiments demonstrated that these light-up biorthogonal probe outperformed conventional fluorophores, for example, high signal-to-noise ratio and deep tissue penetration. The design strategy reported in this study is a useful approach to realize diverse high-performance biorthogonal light-up probes for in vivo studying.

  DOI

Recent grants

• CAREER: Multifunctional Dynamic Surfaces for Engineering Cell Microenvironments

  NSF · $500k · 2012–2018

• NIH Grant R21HL108098

  NIH · $208k · 2014

• NIH Grant R21HL10809801A1

  NIH · $181k · 2013

Frequent coauthors

• Allison Siehr

  University of Minnesota

  21 shared

• Bin Xu

  State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse

  18 shared

• Mengen Zhang

  University of Minnesota

  9 shared

• Ronald A. Siegel

  8 shared

• Jiachen Yu

  3 shared

• Jiacai Li

  Henan University

  3 shared

• H. Li

  3 shared

• Mengqi Wang

  Inner Mongolia Medical University

  3 shared

Labs

• Tissue Mechanics LaboratoryPI

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