Biomedical Engineering and Healthcare
Principal Investigators
Zhanfeng Cui
FREng, Donald Pollock Professor of Chemical Engineering, University of Oxford
Director of Strategic Projects, China Mathematics, Physical and Life Sciences Division
Director, JITRI IMPACT Institute at Oxford University
Cathy Ye
Professor in Engineering Science, University of Oxford
Professor Ye specialise in enabling technologies for tissue engineering and stem cell technology, such as the development of bioreactor technologies to enable bone, cartilage, tendon and skin culture to grow. A further area of interest is the study of the technology and science in cryopreservation and vitrification to preserve living cells and engineered tissues.
James Kwan
Associate Professor of Engineering Science, University of Oxford
Professor Kwan’s research interests focus on physical acoustics, namely ultrasound and cavitation. Prof Kwan’s research aims to engineer systems to harness the high energy of ultrasound and cavitation and promote drug delivery, gene transfer to cells, and sonochemistry.
David Clifton
Professor of Clinical Machine Learning, University of Oxford
Professor Clifton focuses on the development of AI for healthcare applications. Clifton’s lab at OSCAR will develop novel “smart” healthcare technologies, involving Chinese hospital partners and Chinese technology firms.
Co-PI
Dr. Haiyun Pei / Prof. Zhanfeng Cui’s group
Dr. Pei has long been dedicated to applied basic research in the field of regenerative medicine, with a core focus on cell engineering, organoid-based drug sensitivity modeling and novel target discovery, as well as the development of drug delivery systems and therapeutic applications of small extracellular vesicles (sEVs).
Senior Research Scientist
Dr. Petr Jurcicek / Prof. Zhanfeng Cui & Prof. Cathy Ye’s group
Dr Petr Jurcicek joined OSCAR in January 2023 as a Senior Research Scientist in Prof. Cui Zhanfeng’s and Prof. Cathy Ye’s group. He earned his PhD in 2014 at the Dalian University of Technology, School of Mechanical Engineering with a focus on microsystems technology (MEMS). During his research, he focused on computational fluid dynamics modelling of nano-electrospray ion transfer in AC electric fields from the atmospheric pressure region to the high vacuum of a mass spectrometer and developed a novel miniaturised device to improve ion transfer efficiency.
Since earning his PhD degree, Petr has pursued his professional career path in the biomedical and consumer products industry. Before he joined OSCAR, Petr worked at Sky UK Ltd, Europe’s largest media company and TV broadcaster based in the United Kingdom. There, he was heavily involved in Glass TV development and mass production, Sky’s first and largely successful TV product in the UK market. Petr is a seasoned mechanical design and R&D engineer with broad experience and knowledge of full product lifecycle, mass manufacturing, electronics design and software development.
Dr. Yanbing Zu / Prof. Zhanfeng Cui’s group
Dr. Zu joined OSCAR in January 2024. His research interests include molecular diagnostics, nanotechnology, and analytical chemistry. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Wuhan University, and received postdoctoral training at Xiamen University, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Cambridge. Before joining OSCAR, he was a Principal Scientist at the NanoBio Lab, A*STAR in Singapore. His current research focuses on developing innovative technologies for molecular diagnostics.
Dr. Ivan Smirnov / Prof. James Kwan’s group
Dr Ivan Smirnov joined OSCAR in July 2023 as a Senior Research Scientist in Prof. James Kwan’s group. He received his PhD in Physics and Mathematics in 2013 at Saint Petersburg University with a specialization in Solid Mechanics and Fracture Mechanics. His former research related to non-equilibrium processes of deformation, failure, and energy dissipation in various media. In his practice, he actively uses ultrasound and optoacoustic techniques to study the physical and mechanical properties of matter. In the last six years, he has been closely involved in the effect of ultrasound on the intensification of industrial processes as well as phase transitions. Also, he has been intensely interested in the research of acoustic cavitation and associated dynamic phenomena. His current research is focused on controlling the effects of ultrasound and cavitation to promote phase transitions, chemical reactions, and targeted drug delivery.
Research Scientist
Dr. Zhangdaihong Liu / Prof David Clifton’s group
Zhangdaihong (Jessie) Liu undertook her PhD at the Mathematics for Real-World Systems CDT at University of Warwick. Jessie’s research interests also include predictive modellingData Institute, University of Oxford, and a PhD enrichment student at the Alan Turing Institute. Prior to this, she obtained an MSc in Mathematics of Systems from Warwick University, an MSc in Mathematical Finance at Loughborough University, and a BSc in Mathematics at Shandong University, China.
Her PhD thesis entitled ‘Latent Variable Modelling of Population Neuroimaging and Behavioural Data’ focused on the development of a dimension reduction method that improves the interpretability of latent variable models applied to health-related datasets. Her research also involved uncovering latent patterns between neuroimaging, behavioural and demographic measures, as well as the application of various large dataset processing techniques.
Jessie’s research interests also include predictive modelling, feature extractions, recommender systems, deep learning and reproducible research.
Dr. Yujiang Wang / Prof. David Clifton’s group
Dr. YujiYujiang'sjoined OSCAR in October 2023 as a Research Scientist and Associate Head of Machine Learning Lab in Prof. David Clifton's Digital Health group. Yujiang received his PhD degree in Computer Vision from Imperial College London in 2021, and he also possesses a Bachelor's degree in Architecture from Tsinghua University and two MSc degrees with Distinctions from Imperial College London and University College London, respectively.
Yujiang took a research career onsite at Meta AI for more than half a year after his PhD, and later he joined the University of Oxford as a Postdoctoral Researcher in clinical AI under the supervision of Prof. David Clifton for around two years. Yujiang's research interests centre around AI for healthcare, lip-reading, intelligent wearable devices, etc., and he is still ready to embrace new questions and challenges as an AI researcher.
Dr. Huilin Li / Prof. Zhanfeng Cui’s group
Dr. Huilin Li joined OSCAR in September 2021 as a Research Scientist in Regenerative Medical Engineering Centre (RMEC). Her research focuses on cell engineering technology, small extracellular vesicle (sEV) production, and cancer organoid modeling.
Dr. Zhen Qin / Prof. Zhanfeng Cui’s group
Dr. Zhen Qin joined OSCAR as a Research Scientist in 2026. He completed his postdoctoral training at both the University of Oxford’s Department of Chemistry and University College London’s (UCL) London Centre for Nanotechnology, focusing on point-of-care disease diagnostics. Dr. Qin earned his Ph.D. in 2023 from the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto, where his research pioneered microfluidic paper-based biosensors for disease diagnostics. He also holds an M.Eng. degree from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, where he investigated phase change materials for thermal energy storage.
Research Assistant
Jiachen Zhu / Prof. Zhanfeng Cui & Prof. Cathy Ye’s group
Jiachen Zhu received her Master’s degree from Soochow University in 2019 and subsequently joined Oscar. Her background is in biomaterials, with experience in silk fibroin electrospinning and the development of silk protein-based micropatterned surfaces. Her current work focuses on extracellular vesicle (EV) purification process development, formulation, lyophilization, and storage.
Yida Zeng / Prof Zhanfeng Cui’s group
Yida Zeng joined the Oxford Suzhou Centre for Advanced Research (OSCAR) in September of 2019. He holds a bachelor's degree from Imperial College London and have five years of industrial experience in GMP-grade cell therapy products. His education background is in cell biology and molecular biology, and his current research focuses on developing large expansion protocols for cells and organoids using novel bioreactors, as well as establishing cryopreservation protocols for animal vaccines. In addition, he serves as the manager of the P2 (Biosafety Level 2) laboratory, overseeing its day-to-day management and operation.
Yong Yin/ Prof Zhanfeng Cui’s group
Senior Research Engineer
Holding Master’s degree from Wuhan University, Yin Yong built his expertise in medical and industrial products at GE and Philips Healthcare. He now focuses on biomedical device design and the commercialization of technologies in OSCAR.
Jiawei Ju
Project Manager
Jiawei Ju joined OSCAR in May 2023 as a project manager in in energy storage. She graduated from Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2014. She was engaged in product development and translating research outputs into practical applications in the environmental protection industry. At OSCAR, she is mainly responsible for the industrialization of energy storage related technologies.
Mohan Zhang/ Prof. James Kwan’s group
Mohan Zhang joined OSCAR in August 2023 as the Research Technician in prof. James Kwan’s group. She achieved her master’s degree in biomedical engineering from Tianjin Medical University in 2022. Her previous research focused on the numerical simulation of transcranial ultrasound stimulation of the hippocampus. Her current research will focused on promote drug delivery used by ultrasound cavitation.
